


The Erlking

by allollipoppins



Series: A force of mind and circumstance. [2]
Category: The Boy (2016 Bell), Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Alternative Universe - The Boy (2016) fusion, Cannibalism, Character Study, Dark Victor Nikiforov, Erotomania, Gender Roles, Gothic, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Infidelity, Internalized Misogyny, Introspection, Lima Syndrome, M/M, Minor Character Deaths, Morally Ambiguous Katsuki Yuuri, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Orestes Complex, Possessive Victor Nikiforov, Psychological Horror, Rape/Non-con Elements (not between Yuuri and Victor), Stockholm Syndrome, Unreliable Narrator, Yandere Victor Nikiforov, obsessed victor nikiforov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-01-30 12:12:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12653304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allollipoppins/pseuds/allollipoppins
Summary: "Turn back, turn back, thou pretty bride,Within this house thous must not abide.For here do evil things betide."- the Brothers Grimm, "The Robber Bridegroom".When the services of a "nanny" became required at the Nikiforov Estate, Yuuri Katsuki stood in to take care of Victor Nikiforov, son and heir of the fallen Nikiforov bloodline... and a doll.And his presence within the household is as much of a hindrance as it is an alluring danger.Or, the events of Bluebeard's Wife from Victor's point of view.[PLEASE MIND THE TAGS!]





	1. The Preying Mantis

**Author's Note:**

> "Erlking", derived from the German "Erlkönig", is a name used in German Romanticism to refer to the figure of a spirit or the "King of the Fairies". One of its most famous depictions lies in Goethe's 1782 poem "Erlkönig", the tale of a father and son galloping late at night and being chased by the Elf-king. The ballad closes on the son's untimely death at the hands of the Elf-King.
> 
> cw: character death by strangulation.
> 
> This fic now has art!!!! Made by the wonderful [missbellatrix](http://missbellatrix.tumblr.com/). The beautiful cover she made can also be found [here](http://missbellatrix.tumblr.com/post/168322826779/bluebeards-wife-commissioned-by-allollipoppins) !

 

_Out of all the rooms in the Nikiforovs' mansion, the first guest room had come to be his favorite._

 

_It was a small, quaint little room compared to the ones that filled the house, and yet it had a coziness to it that made it so unique, permeated with a homely comfort imprisoned by the confines of four walls. A secret kept and nurtured away from the peering eyes of his relatives._

 

_His father knew to find him there, amid the blood red cushions and mismatched wooden furniture surrounding the room, playing with toy soldiers and wooden puppets. The wallpaper was starting to get mouldy from the exposure to the light and humidity, and the carpet was gathering dust no one was willing to vacuum. But there was no smell to attest for these factors, no foul stench of murky water or sweat imbued within the fabrics and the air. Alabaster lilies hung across the room against their background of black soil, blooming on the walls and casting light about in the darkened room. In spite of its exposure, the room caught very little sun, its rays the remnants of a glow filtered by clouds and trees, a chalky kind of luminescence that constantly needed to be compensated by a table lamp._

 

_In the absence of guests Father had unoficially turned the room into Victor's own playground to escape to when rain hit hard enough to drench his clothes and put mud under Makkachin's paws, out in the garden where they otherwise would play "fetch" on the rare sunny days. No one else ever went there apart from himself and Makkachin, save to call him down for dinner. It was his. It was perfect._

 

_Vladimir Nikiforov found his son one evening, already dressed in his pajamas and playing with one of the teddy bears they had gifted him with for his birthday. The little thing looked older beyond its few days of life, having had the misfortune of running into Makkachin and then into some rats. Anastasia had merely linked at the sight of the mangled plush, and told him to throw it out in the trash. However Victor had insisted on keeping it, saying that he still loved it no matter how ugly it was. It was probably not the cleanest choice to make, but Vladimir could hardly refuse his son anything._

 

_"Victor," he greets, though without expecting an answer. Lost to the throes of his juvenile imagination, his son is as good as dead to the world._

 

_Vladimir bent down to his level, smiling fondly at his son who was doing some sort of strange, sitting dance with the disfigured bear. He always felt a little out of place when it came to his son's... activities, as if Victor were taking part in some sort of sordid ritual in which only he had the upperhand and no one could possibly wish to enter. Even dressed as he currently was, in a three-piece suit complete with a sleek tie and black leather shoes, he could never measure up to the exclusive members of Victor's little club._

 

_His finger traced a red line burning across his cheekbone. The result of Anastasia's latest fit of rage. She had apologized soon after, of course, hurling Victor into her arms and sobbing, her nose buried in the crown of silver hair and his face buried in the crook of her neck._

_If only she had hugged her actual son, and not the doll._

 

_"You know I love you son, don't you?" Victor nodded curtly, lips pursed and eyes foused on the way the wadding peaked out under the teddy bear's wounds, eviscerated as he already was. Vladimir ruffled his hair distractedly, the fringe was becoming too long for him to properly see. It added to the few goods things Victor had inherited from his father. With his looks, he might have been the ghost of Vladimir's youth, a carbon copy of himself, a younger brother, a cousin, a nephew perhaps. And yet he had no relatives who could answer to that. It was only him, Anastasia, Victor and Makkachin. And the ghost of Alexander in the other room._

 

_"I'll make this better, I promise," Vladimir whispered in his son's ear, kissing his cheek soundly. Victor's hand stilled on the toy, fingers clenching its woolen limbs and digging into the cotton threatening to spill out of the half-eaten gashes._

 

_"Yes papa," he replied simply, without lifting his eyes or looking away from the plush. Its beady, black eyes stared up at him and he stared back from underneath his silver fringe, gaze never breaking._

_Something else he had inherited from Vladimir, apart from his silverlike blond hair, his blue eyes and pale complexion. His passivity._

 

_Vladimir, sighed, patting Victor's head as he rose up to his feet and made for the door, turning one last time to glance at his son before leaving. Victor had resumed his playing, twisting the bear around and lifting him slightly in the air. Makkachin slept like a log by his side, Vitya's silent protector and friend through thick and thin._

 

_Victor Nikiforov never saw his mother and father again. Only he and Makkachin remained, the formers in their quaint little room and their even quainter house of broken and mended relics._

_On the other side of the door, obediently sitting in his amrchair, the doll rested; blissfully unaware of the events that would unfold in the manor._

 

* * *

 

When the first rays of dawn break, Victor crawls into the room.

 

There is but an hour left before the household should awake, and in spite of the early time he can't bear to wait for the clock to strike seven.

 

He can hear them from the threshold. If he strains his ears this is all he can catch, almost. The excruciating tick of needles pricking each other behind a glass frame, the single stabbing that clobbers from the other side of the room.

 

The door creaks in his wake when he pushes it. She hadn't bothered to lock the door when she had gone to sleep last night, scampering to her bed into the later hours. Not that it truly bothers him. If anything it makes the act much simpler. She had been careless and she would pay for it.

 

His toes slip in where wood and paper meet the air, padding onto the floor with little more than the murmur of his soles sinking down. The whole length of his body glides into the space, his thin frame moving cautiously but in a smooth motion inside, like rippling water. Once his head seeps inside the room with the rest of his long limbs following suit behind him, he allows himself to truly look. His eyes widen considerably behind his mask, the globes protuding inside their sockets without twitching. He surveys the room coolly, his gaze falling on its centerpiece.

 

She lays sprawled on the bed, partially covered by the sheets, skin prickling slightly from the cold. A myriad of goosebumps rises on her skin, the trimmed, fair hairs on her arms and legs straighten as if touched by static, by an electric current ingrained through air. The girl snoozes, nose buried at the center of her pillow, arms wrapping around herself to seek warmth.

 

His eyes hungrily, ferociously rake over the room, taking in every detail with grim interest.

 

She is present everywhere. Wherever he turns, whatever his eyes can catch in surreptitious glances, proofs of her existence lay bare for him to find. Her dozing body lain from head to toe on the mattress, the fair strands of long hair curled up on the hardwood floor, the make-up and perfume placed on top of the dresser, in clear view before the bed with the mirror standing behind bottled fragrance and foundation, the clothes thrown from side to side, messily draped over the back of a chair and slipping from the drawers.

 

She had come into his territory and he would show her no mercy.

 

He creeps towards the bed with measured steps, his gaze almost transfixed by the girl in the bed. There's nothing remotely noteworthy to her, if anything any feeling he may experience in her occupancy of the room is amusement. Dark, scornful amusement at her effrontery in settling herself so readily in his room, in shoving her face into his pillow and her legs in his sheets, her night clothes riding up her hips and her bosom heavy, peeking from under the thin garment. Fully on display, almost expectant.

 

And here he is.

 

He crawls on top of her, hovering above her in silent observation. In spite of the movement on the bed, from his fingers and knees digging into the mattress, she doesn't rouse from her sleep.

 

Without warning his hands wrap around her neck, pinning her into the bed.

 

Three.

 

Her eyes snap open, finally awakened. She gasps in horror, mouth gaping wide and so large he can clearly discern the back of her throat from his angle. Her screams pierce his ears, a dull, distant commotion that falls on deaf ears. Nails wrap around his wrists, digging into the tender flesh deep enough to imprint crescents in his skin. She shakes spasmodically underneath him, the work of a possessed woman, kicking and lurching madly at him.

 

She offers resistance. Oh, how very brave of her. Sadly for her, it takes more than such a struggle that to take him on.

 

One hand crushes her windpipe while the other tilts her chin upwards in a harsh curve, forcing her to arch her head back. His knee digs into the ribcage, right beneath her breasts. The appendage meets resistance, then finds her thorax as the bones snaps with a satisfying, cracking noise, the howls of her voice drowning out in the abyss of her lungs.

 

Two.

 

Veins pop beneath his hand, red and blue alternately coloring the cells. The blood thrums expeditiously, a pleasant rumble bursting under the dermis, palpable enough to be picked up by his ears. The rest of the corpse convulses beneath him, pressed down by his heavier form and failing to kick. He can feel her limbs grow heavier, her remains stretched out along the bed with death-like stillness and her fingers already loosening from his wrists after her vain exertion.

 

One.

 

And snaps.

 

Her eyes roll at the back of her head, globes losing their colored glow and pupils turning a full-blown, creamy white; microscopic veins sprout from the corners, swelling with liquid and budding into thick, tiny arm-like slipstreams.

Her mouth fills with thick blood, the crimson liquid overflows and drips from the corners of her lips. Blood seeps into her skin and cakes just so, its dark texture cutting the face into two unequal parts, the lower lips practically hanging as if he had slipped a blade inside each cheek and slit them.

 

The severed head reels back on the pillow as he lets go. He pants a little from the exertion behind his mask, hot air pooling around his mouth and chin.

His fingers bend and twist, gnarled and somewhat stiff. It had been a while. Rouge taints his knuckles, the cold nipping at them. There's a lingering itch on his wrists, the result of her scratching in attempt to defend herself from him. Her nails, kept long, had lacerated the meager fabric of his sleeves, trails of loosened thread cuffing his wrists. He picks at it absentmindedly, following its course as the woolen cobweb comes undone, dangling nimbly between his thumb and forefinger. Gone.

 

Victor lowers himself from atop the carcass, backs himself up to the threshold and into the darkened hall.

 

It won't be long before they come back to pick the body.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Social life? Who this, don't know anyone by that name.  
> I think it is pretty clear by now that I'll probably not win NaNoWriMo with this - I can't just write the whole thing as a draft and then publish you see? I wouldn't have the nerve for that  
> (would you also believe that I also got EXTRA plot bunnies in the period between BW's ending and the publication of the Erlking, with all the other fic ideas waiting for me? fml.)
> 
> Next chapter: Real gods require blood.


	2. Real gods require blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”
> 
> ― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
> 
> The reaping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trivia: "Real gods require blood" is my response to the ending of Bluebeard's Wife chapter 1, in which Yuuri thought Victor to be the image of "a wrathful god". Cue the quote.
> 
> I wrote this chapter on a roll of sleep deprivation, hormones and tinto de verano/sangria. 400% don't recommend at all.  
> UPDATE: I had the last third of this chapter rewritten slightly so it would be a little longer and a little more expressive. I hope it makes a small difference :)
> 
> More seriously, this chapter in particular has worn me out. Not only because "getting inside" Victor's brain is exhausting, but also because I became pretty self-conscious of my writing halfway. The more I write the more it all feels like purple prose. I mean I understand that it is inevitable when you're writing gothic/psychological horror at some point, but I wonder what your opinion is on the matter :)
> 
> There are lots of themes implied in this particular chapter, ones that were implied in Bluebeard's Wife and others that are just being introduced. Of course you probably won't be able to identify everything, but I thought I'd give you a heads-up before I decide to update the tags tomorrow. So before you ask: *yes* everything new is here for a purpose.  
> In the meantime, have a happy reading!

The blade dances across her face, catching the rays of sunlight shyly peeking from behind the blinds. It hovers above the still figure, a pendulum that casts shadows along her profile, falls into step with the angular cheekbones and cleft chin. A single beam slices through the middle, the burning echo of his pocket knife superficially carving into the red line smeared from ear to ear.

 

It reminds him of the magicians his father used to show him in his own childhood picture books, pages turned yellow with time and yet still intact. Full of black and white pictures of magicians, decked in suits and top hats with a black mustache curling atop their upper lip, eyes glinting from the paper with an expression that spoke only of mischief. Handsome men accompanied by equally breath-taking, busty young women who willingly complied with the silliest requests, going as far as laying down in a box with only their head gandering from one side and the tip of red, pointy feet gaily swaying from the other. Cunning fellows who drove swords through their beautiful assistant's body and pushed the boxes apart, only to pull them back together and put the women into one piece again.

 

He had tried to amuse himself in such a way once, when his amusement could only be fulfilled by a cardboard box and a fat rat unlucky enough to end in his clutches. The first time he had tried, incomprehension had quickly been followed by surprise when the struggling rodent only gave a sharp squeak after having Vladimir's hunting knife piercing through him, head and tail limply sagging as the paper walls soon stained with black liquid.

 

Once, not seeing the pieces come back together when he did it was enough to amaze him. He could easily do it now. The tip of his blade would sink into the flesh, plunge avidly into it until its course should be halted by resistance; bone meets metal, limb meets handle of his meager knife. And on he would persist, dragging his toy from one side to another, the meat of her squelching and binding steel with blood. Primal, uncouth, the feral part of him going back to its roots.

 

He could, but he never does. He should find the sight of blood enticing, should even let visions of torrents of it drown him in his dreams; let it fill his empty conscience and the gaping hole dug within.

The one they had buried his parents in had been deep, Lilia told him after the funeral ceremony, profound enough for them to vanish into the depths of earth with nothing left to see. The pillow they had placed atop Anastasia's head to hide the damage, immaculate white as it was and buried inside her casket with what remained of her, was never to be found again.

Shame he couldn't be there to witness it. Even assisting the church ceremony would have been too much of a hassle – for how would explain the presence of the Nikiforov's only child, dead child, to a crowd full of superstitious and easily excited Christians? It would have been fun, playing ghosts to disrupt them all and playing a final trick on his mother. Particularly when her pretty little skull, smashed to pieces and beyond recognition, would not be able to turn on him with her natural, ever-constant sneer.

 

And yet the very thought that their blood should come in contact with his own skin repulses him to no end. While blood spurts from open wounds and limbs disengage from their host, he becomes more aware of his own body, of the breath in his lungs and his heart pumping rapidly in his chest. Destruction heighens his senses in a way he never thought he could feel before, drawing death out of him.

And oh, how he hates this sickening awareness. This apprehension that meets him halway through his excitement, like a perpetual hunger etched in the depth of his loins, a longing that spans time without ever been satiated. Or rather, never for long.

Killing her, like killing all the others, leaves a residual taste in his mouth, a sweet-as-candy sting that quickly turns foul, leaving an acid-like burn in the pit of his stomach that threatens to make him gag and swallow his own tongue.

There is, and there will always be something missing in the act, a piece of the puzzle that doesn't interlock with the rest, or doesn't exist alltogether.

It must be in the women's nature.

 

He does like his nannies with outlandish, foreign features. While he may not pick them for their pretty faces, there's no denying their compelling physique. Ivory skin reminiscent of youth, clear eyes so bright the whole world could fit into the irises and pupils, cheeks that burned under scrutiny. Innocent at first sight, but merely a mask as well-crafted as his own, save for the fact that theirs blended into thin skin. Elvish, devious little creatures of petite statures, naughtier than children. They had a cherubic glow to themselves, although there was something of a streak of aristocracy reflected in the aquiline nose and feline eyes, the way they raised their chins and commanded the room with a pointed glare, forcing humans to bow before them.

Such creatures didn't belong in the mortal realm. And so he would give them back to nature himself.

 

He gives back to the world what the world offered him, but allows himself the privilege of keeping only the most factitious of things. The woman's accusing eyes and lips and hands he surrenders, taking utmost care in lowering her eyelids with the barest brush of his fingertips over the expanse of flesh. The jaw clicks under his hand, slack and slotting itself into place when teeth snap together onto the crimson pit. Her hands come to be crossed over her breasts, fingers woven together in such an intricate manner they look tiny, childish, harmless. Now that she cannot hurt him, there's no need for defensiveness.

 

He takes great care in unclipping her earrings and sliding a ring off her fourth finger, little tokens that probably have little to no worth but shimmer still, heavy in his palm. His blade pries underneath her clothes, slashes through the middle with a razor-sharp rip, fibers soaring amid the dust and sunlight. Slowly he disentangles her arms out of the torn nightgown, and whistles lowly to Makkachin. The pitter-patter of her paws against the floor becomes more pronounced as she races into the room and comes to nuzzle Victor's palm. He hides a small, fond smile behind his mask, His fingers comb through the poodle's messy brown curls, bringing the wrung cloth closer to her snout. She sniffs the fabric eagerly, her teeth snatching into it and tearing it to ribbons. He leaves her to play on the floor with her newfound toy, as he puts the final touches to his piece.

 

Coarse hair prickles his skin as he takes fistfuls of it in his hands, as thick and rough as straw sagging in the grip of his palm. The blade shears at the base in long strokes, flogging it harshly and mercilessly. Strands fall limply around him as his grip loosens around the expanse, split ends piling on the floor in a wiry heap. All that is left of her is a bristly mane that accentuates her tomboy features. Her head rolls slighly to the side when he slides the pillow from below her neck, skull drooping at a distorted angle from above the stocky neck, marred with purple bruises. He flattens the pillow over her hollow cheeks and her face disappears, drowning under the weight of the pillow.

 

Headless as she is now, he only realizes how frail she looks. Limbs pale and orderly, unmoving, as shapely as a doll's, her skin smooth as a baby's bathed in daylight, devoid of goosebumps. The shadows her body casts against the sheets bounce back on the muscles, making them appear swollen, fuller with fat than a child's. Oh, how he loathes them. The children, the toddlers especially. Always staring, even inanimate and locked behind the glass of picture frames they always stare with eyes darker and wider than the depths of wells, head bobbing over a parent's shoulder and mouth agape, suckling on a pacifier and squeezing the life out of them the way they could nearly draw the tits off of their mother's breasts. And how clearly he can imagine the litany of meaningless, incoherent babbling going on inside their mind. If he squints light and shade blur alltogether, creating wrinkles that burst at the knees and elbows. Her body curls into itself, greying members digging into the center of the mattress. A sallow, mangled foetus, bordering on reptilian.

 

She can't hurt him. But his grip on each side of the pillow remains just as insistent.

 

Was this what Alexander looked like when he was born – or rather, when he wasn't? Or had he crawled his way inside Victor's mouth as soon as he has escaped the clutches of the womb, slipped inside of him and spread from head to toe until there was nothing of Victor Nikiforov left to be found?

Alexander. Alexis. Alex. Alec. Sasha. A thousand names but still the same plague that has cursed his existence ever since the day he was born. His mother had ingrained the name deep enough into his skull to make him remember it, to make him live through it, dream of it. Wherever he is now, he is certainly much better off than him. And be that as it may he is still here. In the house, alive the way memories live on in muted, unspoken silence. As if he had died with Sasha from inside the womb, or as if he were Sasha himself and not Victor. Sasha is white noise, buzzing and whirring in his ears, always in a corner at the back of his mind. Sasha is a bubble that keeps on closing in onto him until the pressure becomes enough to make him choke. Sasha is the foreign patter of feet on wood, the falsely innocent eyes hiding beneath doe-like lashes and fair hair, the soft laughter in the wind that breaks under his hands, the tease that dies on the tip of a tongue.

He is always there, and even gone he will keep on taking and taking from him until there is nothing left for Victor but ashes in his mouth and crumbs for crows and rats to peck off his body.

Elizabeth Bathory had bathed in the blood of young women and virgins to attain eternal youth, and he in turn purges his existence by sending Sasha's ghost back to where he belongs.

 

"That's enough, Victor".

 

His fingers stiffen, sunken deep into the duvet. The curve of his back instinctively arches back in a rigid line, the bones popping with a dry crack as he rights himself up again, still sitting on top of her. So focused had he been that he hadn't heard heard Lilia and Yakov coming back.

 

Lilia stands in the doorway, an epitome of serenity that shadows next to everything else that should be standing in the way. Her stance speaks of absolute composure, body held upright by the heels of her boots and her arms crossed over her chest, back straight and lips pinched in that venerable, appraising line of hers.

He almost misses the movement at the corner on both her sides, Yakov standing next to her with his hat still on and a frown painted all over his face, looking for all the world as if he wished to be anywhere but here. His eyes stray here and there, from the floor and the tip of his shoes to the ceiling and the details of her room; anywhere but on the unmentioned elephant in the room.

A mop of golden hair catches his attention, causing him to tense. Chris shifts at the back, respectfully keeping his distance and avoiding eye contact. While aware that this is a private moment, and a peculiar one, he makes no move to leave for the kitchen as is his custom. The Swiss does hide a grimace when Makkachin, alerted by the new presence runs to sniff him, her prized new possession still caught between her teeth.

How long exactly have they been there?

 

Lilia's voice cuts into his reverie again, though her tone glides like a breeze inside the room, gentle and soothing beyond the seriousness of her expression.

 

“It's alright, Vitya. It's over now.” Her arms untangle as she raises a hand in his direction, beckoning him to come to her. He takes the invitation readily, rising from atop the bed and slipping back on his feet with nearly feline graciousness, his feet soundlessly leading him in front of her. Her gaze doesn't shift as his shadow falls in step with her own, his head comes above her own. The extended palm doesn't retreat, not does it get closer.

 

Lilia turns to Yakov, showing him a fraction of her cool profile. "Christophe and I will take care of this. You handle the files."

 

Yakov's frown, a sinous line that seems permanently ecthed on his face, only deepens in the middle of his forehead. "Are you sure? I could help you with that."

 

She merely brushes him of with the same palm she had called upon him with. "Get the files, that will be enough," Lilia orders. "We have work to do."

 

Yakov sighs, a sound lost quickly in the folds of his scarf, and makes to depart, not without nodding curtly at Victor and glancing, for the first and last time, at the body. Though it is furtive, and runs away as fast as Yakov does when he departs for the kitchen, feet shuffling on hardwood, it lingers on the corpse far longer than he would have liked.

 

"Wow," a raspy tone whistles as Chris steps inside the room, his feet already taking him to the deceased's bedside. His pursed lips betray playfulness, though tinged with something caught between morbid curiosity and refrained disinterest. His golden eyes scour the body, searching thoroughly in a manner so lacking in subtleness it makes his skin crawl. "You really did a number on her there."

 

Lilia huffs, surveying the body in turn and not allowing him the time to respond. Probably for the better.

 

"Nothing you haven't seen before, I'm sure." She steps closer to the bed, opposite Chris, as he gets started on disposing of the body. The bedding swiftly comes off under his expert fingers, the fitted sheet and comforter draping over the better part of the legs and chest. Lilia moves to do the same, one hand already sliding under the mattress, but her other hand creeps up the bed, until it comes to rest on her naked belly. Though she keeps her expression carefully measured he is more than aware of the raw, unbridled rage coursing through that single hand as it spreads wide on the abdomen. He knows of the monster that lurks beneath the surface, kept under lock and key.

 

"Nothing but bones on her," she mutters, her voice drifting Victor's way. "Even the rats would starve. Next time choose someone with a little flesh to her, will you?"

 

Chris pauses, attentive to the way her nails claw gingerly at the creamy skin, nails leaving pink incisions that fade as soon as they come.

 

"Was she..."

 

Lilia retracts her hand, as if touching the girl had burnt her palm. "No," she breathes out through her teeth. "She's only been here for two weeks and we were gone the whole time, Yakov and I." Her green eyes bore into his own, one eyebrow raised inquiringly. "Unless you have something to say for yourself."

 

Chris' cheeks flush slightly under the hardly-veiled interrogation, but otherwise he remains undeterred. "Of course not! You know me."

 

Lilia nods, then wringle her hands to remove the bedding and twists to cover the unclad parts left.

 

"Salvage what you can and burn the rest. I'll go get the groceries out of the car."

 

She makes to leave but Chris raises his head in her direction, his sharp intake of breath stopping her. "You know, I could always get you some meat next time I come by."

 

Lilia shakes her head, a polite gesture that feels all too automatic from the way her head sits above her long neck, a pointed chin that nods a little drily. "Thank you, but I'm afraid we already have more than enough in the freezer. Not that Yakov will eat any of it anyway."

 

Chris nods back, turning to the task at hand, but not without looking any less discomfited.

 

Lilia brushes a hand on his shoulder as she walks past him, a fleeting touch that spreads a tingle of warmth under the thin material of his shirt. "Go wait for me in the kitchen, okay? I'll make us syrniki, your favorite."

 

Her foot is halfway above the threshold when he stops her, hand closing in onto her wrist.

 

Three words escape his mouth, roughened by lack of use and partly muffled by the porcelain of his mask.

 

"Mila and Georgi?"

 

Lilia stiffens under his palm, the pulse frantically racing like a rabbit but not transcending past her veins.

 

Oh, that's right. They don't talk about Mila and Georgi.

 

She slowly turns to look at him, and that's when he takes in how tired she looks. Her lips look dry from biting and relentless licks of the tongue, red cracks seeping through the stark red lipstick; the globes of her eyes sit heavily behind the eyelids, the skin below them sunken and powdered. What she doesn't say, her eyes and sigh do instead of her mouth. How bad could it possibly be?

 

"We need to find you a new nanny."

 

This bad, then.

 

* * *

 

He digs into the pancakes with enough blunt force to pierce them. Chocolate sauce explodes under the cutlery, the syrupy liquid starts to drip from the tip of his fork and knife and over the surface of the syrniki, overly sweet and oozing from the wound he created within the pastry. He makes a mess of the plate as Lilia and Yakov pay him no mind, going through what seems to be an endless pile of files. A silent conversation goes on between them, a mixture of surreptitious glances, pointed fingers, blinks and frowns that distort their faces at the sight of the paperwork left to sort through.

 

How surprising, given how detached they are from the rest of the world. The rest of the county is inhabited, for sure, though it extends itself within large borders. This, and the surest and fastest way to get to the nearest village is by car, a twenty-minute should the weather be appropriate and no incident occur during the travel.

He distractedly glances at the file, perusing the pages flying from hand to hand, then from file to pile. Faces uncover before the holes of his mask, all strikingly similar even from a distance. Various pale faces framed with fair hair merge with the background and papers, masculine chins and bone structure cutting through the polaroids, eyes piercing dots that might as well be the result of Lilia's pen hovering over them, branding each page with ticks and crosses, and the occasional nought with a pointy interrogation mark at its center. So far, for as much as he can tell of her progression, there are more crosses than not. She would know what pleases him.

They always come in lots, like a fine box of chocolates, and each with her own facets. Blonds, redheads, the occasional brunette, all with a pretty face and overworked, scrawny but protuberant limbs to their name. An odd combination of feminine grace but masculine features, aristocratic traits cultivated by age and the art of dramatics and makeup artistry. Puppet-like faces covered by splotched make-up crusted down to the pores, irises as clear and emotionless as a toy's. The perfect combination.

It is amusing, seeing all these girls, these young women freshly out of the dancing academy line up on their doorstep with their thick accents and Lady Macbeth smiles, only to crumble to dust before Lilia Baranovskaya. All foreign little things, these girls, without a clue as to what life was like but fierce as matches one lits in the dark for their candle. Except that their house has no candle to light, and matches never last.

There are rumors, of course. Rumors are inevitable in such a small county, especially when people as opulent as the Nikiforovs are involved. Most of the talks he knows from Chris, from the furtive conversations the blond had with the previous girls. Many pubgoers whisper behind their backs about the Feltsman's involvement in the war, their links and contacts from their days of associating with the Commies, and what do you think they do to these poor girls?

Not that they really cared much in the end. A beer and another woman comfortably settled on their lap later, the conversation is lost.

In spite of it all he never fails to be surprised by the amount of files piling up in the mailbox and on the kitchen table.

 

A single file catches his attention, settled by Lilia's elbow. It has been there since the beginning of breakfast, a lone file propped on the table next to the mountain of paper slowly building, and it has remained unopened ever since regardless of how fast Yakov and Lilia run down each profile. From its thickness he can tell this isn't a normal file, and if the colored edges are anything to take as a clue this one profile is sure to contain a lot of pictures. Different from every other file which only contained a curriculum and a letter of recommendation, usually only a page or two unless she should have extensive experience as both a worker and a dancer. Such cases come less often, if not at all. It had been a while since such a profile had risen, and it hadn't ended well for either party.

 

He tilts his head to the side, curiosity piquing him. His free hand nimbly reaches for the file, dragging itself onto the slightly sticky surface of the table, pads of his fingertips reaching for neon blue plastic and pulling towards him.

 

Lilia's own hand momentarily stills her leafing through the page she is currently reading, Yakov distantly eyeing him as he sets the binder in front of him, next to his half-eaten plate. The legs of his chair screech under his weight as he pushes it closer to the edge of the table, leaning his head forward. Somehow, Lilia turns back to her file and Yakov follows suit, but not without keeping an eye on him. A habit of his, to toy a little with his surroundings while they go about to the formal part of the family affairs.

 

Sleek plastic spreads underneath his palm, its surface so untouched he can see himself on the cover. It's close enough, at the very least; a bulky, cobalt and azure figure standing over it, peering at the opaque file. The cover gives way not to a curriculum, as he expected, but to a picture printed on the full-length of the glossy page. His hand hovers over it.

And stiffens.

A boy stares back him from under a black, tousled fringe, the light filtering through the windows catching his irises. The wide brown circles are partly obscured by the frames of his glasses, a bright blue that stands out in a stark manner against his lightly tanned skin. His round cheeks, a curve that could appear out of place combined with his muscled tights and arms, surprisingly fit him well, almost cutting through the frame.

For the first time in twenty years, he is seeing a boy. A real boy, who is neither Chris nor Georgi.

His tongue feels heavy and dry as a stone in his mouth, glued to his palate and pulsating. He flips through the pages. The boy, whom he guesses to be of Asian descent, dances from picture to picture, alternately standing in a sudio in ballet slippers to moving on a stage, then fluidly slipping onto what looks like ice, blades shining with a cutting edge. His body moves, motionless as it is, under his fingers, limbs as thin and folded as a woman's in their movement, a grace that suits well the varying expressions his face reveals. They speak of an openness, a loneliness that takes him aback. And he looks so fragile, as if he were made of glass and not of flesh and bones. So, so small.

There's a familiarity in him that is a little unsettling. His eyes, his hair, his skin, his very being, is a foreign spirit all by itself that calls out some of his memories. Raven strands that stand in a mess of stray locks atop his head, falling in front of his eyes and teasing his nape and ears. Brown eyes so profound they look black printed against the page. If he squints he can alternately see his mother's dark head of hair and eyes, and Sasha's damnable human likeness in him.

He wants nothing than to crush his heart between his teeth and shatter it to pieces.

 

"Victor?"

 

Lilia and Yakov have set down their respective files in front of them, no longer paying attention to the girls' endless list of prowess and education background. Lilia's fingers still grip hers in a white-knuckle grip, the golden ring on her right hand a dull glow that blinks up at him.

 

"Who is this?"

 

Lilia's breath itches between her teeth, a low snarl only tempered by the trembling in her Adam's apple. Yakov raises an eyebrow, twitching slightly though he doesn't dare to answer. The older man's lips are pursed, a microscopic "o" held at the edge between opening and closing his mouth. An expectant answer that won't let itself be discovered.

 

"Who is this?" he repeats, louder, clearer, not so much for lack of response. His eyes narrow under the mask, a perceptible movement that makes the both of them lean back in their chairs.

 

A beat passes, one second too long, before Lilia draws in a breath. "This is Yuuri Katsuki, a Japanese figure skater." She waves a cautious finger at one of the pictures spread out on the table, one of the boy – Yuuri, he calls him – frozen in what appears to be an elaborate spin. "Or, ex-figure skater I should say. I was forwarded his profile to see if I could get him a place at the Bolshoi." She sighs impatiently, a mother berating her child. "He's not part of the list Victor, here, give it back."

 

But before she can get a hold of the picture he pushes them further towards him, paper creasing and rumplying drily from how roughly he grasps them, almost folding Yuuri Katsuki in half. His elbows lower on the photos, the meat of his forearms squashing down the Japanese man's face.

 

"I want him."

 

The room suddenly feels colder than it was before. Yakov and Lilia still before him, Yakov's face an expression of pure horror while Lilia's matches that of disbelief. Their mouths starts to open, their lips twisting in an impending sound that he breaks as soon as he perceives him.

 

"I said I want him," he barks. Unspoken words die on the tip of the elders' lips, mouths still agape. From surprise, from anger, from fear, it is hard to tell. A shiver runs down their skin, he notes when their arms stiffen side to side, rigid and yet pliant in a crooked manner under the surface of clothing.

Naturally. Anger would never work on any of them.

 

"Please?" he whispers in a smaller voice, dropping down by a few octaves. This time he doesn't address the room as a whole entity, but his eyes are on Lilia only.

 

Her face crumples at his words, her features softening at the change his tone undergoes. Yakov's arms cross, hiding his discomfort, from either being excluded or having to leave the final decision to Lilia, not having a say in her next words. He needs not wait for her to speak to know what her answer will be, but there's a finality to her speeches that never fails to satisfy him. Like a hook sinking in the eye of the fish, line tugging down and rising up again. Sinker.

 

It is she, of course, who finally breaks the silence. "I will see what I can do," Lilia mutters, her heart leaping uncomfortably high in her throat. She holds his gaze for a brief moment until it falls into her laps, nails digging cobwebs into the black stockings adorning her legs. Yakov sighs beside her, a low and shaky exhale camouflaged as a light cough.

 

He grunts in response, satisfied, before he turns back to Yuuri Katsuki's eyes; an untamed burgundy a little rough at the edges, determination brimming within them. There's an elegance and confidence that exudes through his steps, one that, he believes, could easily turn to disobedience.

 

And what do we do to bad boys who misbehave?

We punish them.

 


	3. And we feed our pleasant remorse / As beggars nourish their vermin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take a step back into the past with me...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from Baudelaire's "Au Lecteur/To The Reader".
> 
> This took three days longer than it should have, I am so so sorry :( This week didn't agree a lot with my writing moods. I was right in the middle of writing this chapter during the week (planning to make it longer) when OpenOffice... just crashed on me? And I lost a great deal of my draft AND research which I couldn't recover afterwards? I think the baristas at Starbucks witnessed the whole breakdown fro their counter... I was deep into editing and trying to get back as much of this chapter as I had lost when I started talking to my family on skype this weekend and... well. Even when we're in completely different countries they somehow manage to give me anxiety (if you follow me on twitter you know how that went. Anyway....)
> 
> Wow people. We are already at 1K+ hits! Like... wow, I don't deserve this, thank you all so much :')  
> As promised we are finally at chapter 3 folks! This chapter is a little special because it sends us back to the past to understand a few points from the present - only hints really. The focal point? We'll be appreciating the story from a certain chaarcter's pov. Hope you'll like it :)  
> I suggest rereading chapter 5 of BW (Chris and Yuuri's outing at the cemetary) and chapter 2 of this fic after reading this chapter, so to see if the dynamics between characters are a little clearer.  
> As mentioned I originally meant for this chapter to be longer, and to be divided between past and present but as you know by now, eh, wasn't exactly an option. But we'll be going back to present next chapter :)  
> [Also I only realized a week ago that Victor is 30+ in the present? Whoops...]

**One week to Christmas, 1991**

 

_"Will that be all, Madame?"_

 

_Madame, huh? It had been a long time since anyone called her that. Only Lilia had the right to the name, in spite of the years wearing down on her and her career, now next to non-existent due to her retirement from the stages of the Bolshoi Academy. To be able to share such a connection should be a source of pride, of joy, appease the jealousy that has been twisting in her gut at the thought of having to share her palace with another woman._

 

_Her fingers twitch on the window panel as it even crosses her mind, knuckles nervously clicking against wood like a marionette’s, merging with the material. She looks for the most part as if she were victim of a spell of cold, her coordination dissolving as her fingers spread across glass, frozen and still as a spider’s legs on the brink of creating its new web._

 

_It brings her no pleasure. Ever since Lilia and Yakov came back to “help” with the child, the constant alarm that had been ringing in her head had only increased in strength and volume. A background, faraway noise, akin to the call of a name from above the water, the humming of underground pipes and the water streaming through them that one always startles at, regardless of their steady, periodic flow. The frenetic palpitations of a heart, drumming the last of its pulse in silence. She holds Sasha closer to herself, his cool cheek appeasing the burn settled in her cheeks and pale blond hair tickling her nostrils; he smells earthly, like the specks of dust that fly through the halls in the morning. His own little nose presses against her chest, seeking the warmth nestled there._

 

“ _Madame?”_

 

_She sighs from where her noise is buried in Sasha’s hair. Anya’s voice pulls her back to the surface, breathing in the air surrounding them. Annoyance crosses her face as she is forced away from her son’s embrace, pushing back to look up at the young woman. The tip of her nose shone bright red on her face, like the Christmas lights they had started to hang on the tree downstairs. Even her painted lips bled a deeper shade at the centre of her mouth, a sharp contrast to its white outline. The pale complexion, a heritage of her Russian origins, arboured a strange, almost sickly olive hue that faded in with the wallpapers of the master bedroom._

 

_If Anya were not so intimidated by the matriarch of the Nikiforov family, perhaps she would be more appreciative of her looks._

 

_There is little to see these days, little to admire. Anastasia is fat beyond her days of youthful beauty, her skin greying and crinkled from the lack of exposition, slightly puckered at the corners of her lips and the junction where elbows connect each arm together. She prowls the room like a sleepwalker in the middle of the day, her steps as painful as if she were walking on shards of glass, but becomes more active in the wee hours of the night or come morning. Then the mistress of Nikiforov Manor prowls her domain like a lioness in its cage, waiting to notice a defect in the iron bars, anticipating the moment the door latch to her cage will give, and jump. A wide-eyed feline drowning in an austere grey nightgown, flitting among the invisible ton quiet as a mouse, looming on the sidelines of her own house._

 

_But even in illness, Anastasia Nikiforov had the power to command a room with her sole presence, from within its confines and with or without the absence of other beings. She leans against the windowsill, half-sitting and half sprawled, cradling her only child in her arms with the elegance only women of a certain stature can pull off, her state of lethargy somehow imperial in its oddity. Mrs Nikiforov carries herself with the serene certainty of one who knows that the world would shape itself to accommodate her every wish. Her body stands like a heap of tree branches, strong but paper-thin all the same. It adds further to her tomboy, youthful essence, wrenched to the limit and bent in a protective curve; part of that ostensible, unrestrained display of maternal love of hers. Even her words, scarce and clipped these days, are uttered with an equal balance of strength and softness that has a fascinatingly harrowing impact on the younger woman._

 

_"Read them again for me, will you?"_

 

_And read she does, in that thinly-veiled accent of hers, lilt catching at the end of syllables and rolling off her tongue. Anya’s voice, however, betrayed a roughness that hadn’t been there before, at least not a few days ago. She was having the beginning of a flu._

 

“ _Rule number one: No guests; Rule number two: Never leave Sasha alone; Rule number three: Save meals in freezer; Rule number four: Never cover Sasha's face; Rule number five: Read a bedtime story; Rule number six: Play music loud; Rule number seven: Clean the traps; Rule number eight: Only the Giacomettis bring deliveries; Rule number nine: Sasha is never to leave.”_

 

_Anastasia nods absent-mindedly, drinking in the last words that hung from the young woman’s mouth. Anya fidgets on her heels from where she stands, like a chastised child or one that needs to go to the bathroom as soon as possible. Not that she’ll allow it so immediately._

 

“ _Good, good. Write another line in. “Kiss goodnight.””_

 

_Anya promptly writes adds the rule at the end of the page, scribbling furiously in what she guesses must be sprawled, messy handwriting. But no matter; she will have someone type-write it afterwards._

 

“ _Very well,” she forces out, just as a knock comes at the door. “You may leave now.”_

 

_Anya nods, clumsily bowing at the waist and lacking in grace and sharpness. Yakov comes in after the knock, pushing the door back far enough for Anya to push through without straining her figure. They exchange looks as they pass by each other, something that doesn’t go past Anastasia’s own calculating gaze. Their gaze breaks when the young woman finally turns her back on the both of them, wordlessly closing the door behind her._

_Yakov exhales lowly, glancing at the doll in Anastasia’s arms. His arms fall on each side of his body, partly clenched and partly opened, closed palms raised high as if in prayer._

 

“ _Was this truly necessary?” He gestures to the door Anya exited only moments ago, as if her presence still lingered there. There is a palpable trace of her perfume in the air, strong enough to cover the first stench of sickness and as thick as the lipstick she applied to her mouth._

 

_Anastasia simply shrugs, the movement only pressing her son deeper against her full bosom, her chin coming to rest on his own little head._

 

“ _It will be, soon enough. I expect someone else will soon have to stand in for me, should we travel back to Russia. His family was… always fond of him.”_

 

“ _Ana...” he mutters, dejected, as if they hadn’t had this conversation before. And here they were, speaking of a boy who was already partly a ghost in his own house. “You can’t just get rid of him like that. Vladimir won’t allow you to hurt him.”_

 

_She huffs, holding Sasha closer, almost suffocating under his weight pressed so close to her lungs. “Vladimir doesn’t know what a big mistake he is making, allowing him in our home. Besides,” she turns on him, her voice restrained and expression kept neutral with utmost care, “if I were you, Yakov, I would mind my own business.”_

 

_Yakov seems to have very little care for what she has to say. If anything he doesn’t appear to grasp the full meaning of her words. His mind, at the very least, doesn’t appear to boil and buckle under the threat of discovery the way her own pushes on perniciously. And she is all too happy to clarify._

 

“ _That little assistant of Lilia’s, she’s very pretty, you know? But of course you do. She almost looks like Lilia did when she was younger. But fuller.”_

 

_She can pinpoint the exact moment Yakov freezes before her, the skin of his cheeks slack and yet taut, unmoving, the corners of his lips pinched and the teeth gnawing at his tongue inside his closed mouth, the pupils blown wide._

 

“ _Anya hasn’t started to show yet, still I know all the signs. I was pregnant once, after all.”_

 

_Her feet pad imperiously on the floor, bringing her closer to him with every step she takes, circling around him and sizing him up. Yakov visibly shrinks beneath her gaze, falsely innocent, full of childish knowledge. In spite of their height difference she appears taller now, raised to her full length, hovering next to him._

 

“ _It won’t be long before Lilia notices, and you wouldn’t like that now, would you?” Anastasia taunts in his ear, with agonizing proximity. “After all the efforts you made to save your broken, childless marriage, how unfair it would be that Anya should get to bear your bastard.”_

 

_She retracts, relishing the rhythm of her words and their impact on Yakov, who looks worse for wear and clenches his fists in a painful way. If she could, she would almost pity him. Almost. He’s the only one still sensitive to her power._

 

“ _Lilia is very protective of him. I’d watch out for the both of them. Heaven knows what he’ll do to her, or what she’ll make him do.”_

 

_The underlying tone in her voice is what makes Yakov look up at her again. “You can’t possibly mean what I think you’re implying...” he whispers, voice breaking mid-speech._

 

_Anastasia shakes her head in earnest as a reply. “I’ve seen the way Victor looks at her. Just as I have seen the way he looks at me. If there is one person he loves and respects most out of everyone in this household it is her.”_

 

_Silence stretches between the two of them, the aftermath of a silent battle coming to its end, invisible casualties counted and conclusions drawn. It seems like forever before Yakov dares to sigh, breaking the small lapse of peace that pooled between them._

 

“ _There’s a cab that will be taking them into town next week for Christmas shopping.”_

 

_Anastasia nods. A terse up-and-down curve of her neck, lacking in acknowledgement and gratitude, not that he would have ever expected less of her. But before he gets a chance to bid him leave, he ceases the last of his moment with her to speak up._

 

“ _If you won’t spare Mila and Georgi’s lives too, I at least ask that you act carefully. I meant what I said about Vladimir. If he realizes what you are up to… what you will have done, I daresay he will respond in kind. He may be a good man but you and I know he values Victor’s life more than he values yours.”_

 

_Anastasia gives him back his stare from her reflection in the window, unaffected. “I know.”_

 

_She wasn’t naïve enough to think that her husband still cared about her well-being after spending so long caught up in her antics. He would just never understand, always turning a blind eye on their house in ruins, her palace obscured by his presence. He stood in the face of danger and welcomed it as if it were an old friend. Or rather, as if it were his son, and not the one she was currently cradling and nurturing with all of her love. Could it be that dangerous people grew so accustomed to danger that it became akin only to an insect’s nuisance? One that could be crushed so easily under his boot?_

 

_Her delusions of grandeur could only go so far. Vladimir couldn’t be reasoned with. So she would have to take care of everything herself._

 

_Her gaze falls to where the children are playing in the snow, outside, a flurry of red and brown clothes rushing past each other and pelting each side with snowballs. A flash of fiery hair runs past the trees, curls bobbing from underneath a bonnet as a little girl bounces to dodge the projectile aimed her way. She in turn takes hold of a good portion of the white substance, forming it into a ball she rocks in the palm of her hand before throwing it at a brunet boy. He yelps as it hits him square in the face, howling as he sinks to the ground in a dramatic way that only makes the girl laugh at him._

 

_Another boy stands by their side, stock still as he takes in the scene the duo makes. Anastasia’s grip on Sasha tightens, her nails digging into his hard scalp._

 

_The alarm in her head seems to double in size and intensity, no longer a mere bell chiming in the distance or a clock out of tune sitting on top of the drawer. It sounds more and more like a scream._

 

_There he is, the snake in her garden. She would know him anywhere._

 

_The tilt of the fair head, barely perceptible but clearly angled in a show of curiosity or attention when it wasn’t unmoved by light or motion, not a blink ever surfacing to disturb the peace etched on his features._

_The face a chalky, unnatural white, almost ghastly pale and partly obscured, the profile carefully kept hidden by the dark. As if she never really looked him in the face, with neither glass nor air to come between them. Like he was a succession of photographs taken at a second's alternation rather than a human, pages flipping from one to another in quick-enough succession for her to discern the subtle differences between each and every one of them._

_The eyelashes dancing across his face, like the legs of spiders walking along his face and drowning his eyes, as both pupil and iris burn bright into the depths of each globe. The shadows dipping into the taut lines carved in his face, bones cutting through skin and rising underneath it, pulled back by the shadows and stepping forward into the light. The sharp, pearly white teeth hidden inside the powdery pink mouth. Thin lips that curl distractedly, a flickering smile that is there no matter how small it is, a twist of flesh that is at once lenient and mischievous._

 

_The smile is directed at her._

 

_She backs away from her window, the white lace of her curtains occupying the place where she stood._

 

_Anastasia could trust no one. Last of all the ghost of her dead son._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trivia: There is actually A Kenneth MacMillan ballet named "Anastasia" based on the real-life story of Anna Anderson, an amnesiac and mentally-deranged woman who believed that she was he lost Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.
> 
> No, Anastasia doesn't realize that her "son" Sasha is actually a doll. To quote a friend: "She a crazy bitch".
> 
> To clarify in case BW (ch 5) didn't make it clear: Anastasia had twins, Victor and Sasha (the latter died during childbirth). Ever since she has been fixated on the dead child, going as far as creating a doll in what she thinks is his image, completely ignoring Victor in the process and going as far as being maniacal in his presence. Her behaviour towards him didn't change much after his "death", except that she acknowledges that he was alive, but still mistreated him.
> 
> Your opinions are always welcome, I'm a very chatty person in the comments! You can ask me anything about points you may not have understood, even though your questions may or may not involve spoilers ;)
> 
> ABOUT UPDATING: it's pretty clear by now that I work by a weekly update schedule. But be warned that the two next chapter - if not all future chapters - might take a little more than just 6-7 days to come. Hopefully chapter 4 will be ready for the end of next week, as per usual. But I can't guarantee the same for the first week of December. I'll be celebrating my birthday, so chances are I'll give myself a breather and take a week longer. I hope you guys will understand :)
> 
> Next chapter: "Pull the bobbin and the latch will go up".


	4. Pull the bobbin and the latch will go up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The alchemist who makes his gold was never able   
> To extract from him the tainted element,   
> And in those baths of blood come down from Roman times,   
> And which in their old age the powerful recall,   
> He failed to warm this dazed cadaver in whose veins   
> Flows the green water of Lethe in place of blood."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shows up late with Starbucks* suuuuuup people :D  
> I apologize for the timing of this chapter. I initially meant to have it done a week earlier, but as it was college assignments took me two weeks so I had to put the chapter off for some time. And I took some extra time for myself before writing so I could celebrate my 20th birthday, which is why you didn't get this chapter last weekend. Hopefully you'll understand :)
> 
> I'm quite satisfied with how that chapter came out, though as usual I know there are things that could have been more detailed, you be the judge of that! It's even twice longer than what I originally thought it would be, so all the better :D I'm catching a plane in a few hours but I couldn't sleep before it, so I settled on editing while waiting for sleep to come.
> 
> The poem used in the summary and throughout the chapter is Spleen by Charles Baudelaire yet again, "I am the king of a rainy country", from William Aggeler's translation of Flowers of Evil. I recommend reading it on its own and not discontructed as I did here (and if you can read it in French, all the better). The moment I found that poem it just clickedin my head, it just fits Victor so well to me.
> 
> Also allow me to give a huge shout-out to [missbellatrix](http://missbellatrix.tumblr.com/) , who made a beautiful cover for Bluebeard's Wife that you can find [here](http://missbellatrix.tumblr.com/post/168322826779/bluebeards-wife-commissioned-by-allollipoppins) or on the first chapter of BW!
> 
> No words can say how grateful I am to her for doing this, this came out even more beautiful than I could have imagined it to be! She's a sweet, amazing artist, and she was kind enough to patiently sit through my requests, never once complaining about my exagerrated demands for details. She has done a lot of YuriYuu art and many wonderful illustrations for fics from equally fantastic authors like Kashoku. If you can, please consider supporting her on [her kofi](https://ko-fi.com/missbellatrix), she deserves it!

The house lives and breathes, and he echoes her inside and out.

He stands in the laundry room with his eyes closed, head rolling back towards the ceiling. Save for the machines entering their new cycle and the flickering lights bathing the dilapidated walls, he is surrounded by emptiness. Water spews from the pipes in trickles of varying regularity, their pattern echoing the rain that drums on the windows.

The low rumble of machines completes its symphony, all instruments spring up as corresponding to their turn. The heater with its dull rattle, blue flames licking at the metallic insides and making them shake back and forth. The ventilation system humming at a steady pace, breathing in and exhaling the last of its air, a tinny whir that floats through in outlived bouts of sound. Last but not least, of course, are the twin washing machines that bounce together, rhythmically shaking under the combined spin and the weight of fabric, water crashing against the glass door and soaking up the threads.

 

_Like the king of a rainy land,_

 

The wooden floor sinks slightly under the soles of his feet, a soft push that gives underneath him like soil and wet grass. The house quietly rots inside the walls, creaking ever so slightly with every step he takes or every passing breeze. The stairs were becoming rickety and dangerous too, threatening to sag under his weight whenever he passes by them, but so far they have never betrayed him.

The house is good to him. Patient, a single stone that withstands all currents and torments both from the inside and the outside. Two, sometimes four walls enclose him at all times, a constant that allows him to fade with the décor, become one with the house. He can feel its tremors against the wind, its heartbeat; the rumble of its pipes, the creak of its timbers. He bears witness to its power as it awakens, bursting forth with the elements and the complex machinery that pumps energy from its depths to the surface. As if summoning an obscure entity hidden deep underneath the foundation, calling it out and transcending the mortal world. Enshrouded in perpetual, comforting dusk.

 

_Wealthy but powerless, both young and very old,_

 

Victor's mind is like a broken kaleidoscope, fragmented into pieces that only come together in a meaningful manner when he is submerged in nothing but dark. Darkness drapes around him, a seamless cape that shelters him from the onslaught of light. Its weight is reassuring though intangible in the air, even though he is close to certain that he could reach out and tangle his fingers through it, card them between empty particles as if they were black curls.

He has both the gift and curse of vision, one so keen that anything soon becomes oppressively bright in a matter of seconds. Light is treacherous. Light makes things appear as if there were nothing more to them than their own essence, but ultimately shrouds them in dark waves. Never to be trusted, never to be taken for granted. He couldn’t recall a time when he had enjoyed its rays. His eyes had long since grown accustomed to the lack of brightness within his labyrinth. He knows its secrets, hidden under gravity, beneath angles and through the shadows. They have a quality, a noise to themselves that cuts deep in space, a deafening silence that comes in hushed whispers, between gushes and blasts of wind. It reverberates and pulses, like a living heart. Light has none of these temptations.

It doesn’t bother him as much as he had initially thought it would, becoming trapped within the walls, like an insect encased in amber or in the silken cocoon of a spider. He has, for the longest time, kept as little contact with the outer world as possible. What he can gather, whether it be scraps of newspapers and bits of conversations he brushes off as soon as it slips past his ears. Whatever lies beyond the foundations of the estate has long since lost his interest.

Walls, he found, have an essence to themselves that makes them all the more appealing to the eye. No one ever really pays attention to them, unless necessary. To fix a hole in the cement, replace the paper, demolish bricks to recreate them anew. But otherwise, the rules had it that they should always be bypassed, devoid as they were of interest for humans beyond their ability to offer shelter.

 

_Who contemns the fawning manners of his tutors_

 

If only they knew, these poor souls, how endangered they actually were between the walls of this mansion. He flitted from room to room, from corner to corner, always on the hunt; always watching, always waiting where no one could hope to find him. For no one knows, no one could possibly imagine that there should be someone out there, nevermind only a few feet away. To have people look past him, without the slightest hint or knowledge that there should be someone else in the room, makes him feel inherently superior to them. He feels strong, secure, almost limitless. It makes the hunt all the more exciting.

Within them he needs not worry about emotions. About pretending. It gets harder every day to fake, even with his mask obstructing the world’s view of him. He tries to make it reach the visible parts of his body, the small expanse of his forehead peeking from underneath the porcelain face, the creases wrinkling the sides of his eyes, as far as the joints of his hands hidden under the long sleeves of his sweater, and the ligatures running on his collarbones. As predicted, it is as useless as it is tiring to him. The rare smiles that cross his lips, mostly dedicated to Lilia or Makkachin strain the corners of his mouth, tearing at his skin like sandpaper. He had attempted with words too, if only to make use of this voice he had used so little in youth, should he have no other choice. And yet even the earnest, most heartfelt words that furtively escape his mouth are clipped, devoid of emotion. He had only connected the dots with some of the music Lilia played at times in the living room; the voice that had emerged from the tape had been incredibly dry, no different to a toneless reading or synthetic speech.

 

_And is bored with his dogs and other animals._

 

And so he stopped. Pretending to be someone he was not, nor would ever be. He is not a hypocrite, in the sense that he doesn't repress his true nature nor does he make an attempt, however amenable it may be, to change. His mother had vehemently denied it, denied him his existence and his power, and she had paid the price for it. Too bad that his father should have done it for him before he could have done so himself.

Still, her passing had altered little of his lifestyle. The cycle reinvents itself with little alterations in between. Eat, drink, breathe the best he can, fill the dull ache in his stomach that can only be satisfied by the rituals that rule the lives of mankind and animals alike. Something stands in the way of him and complete, utter peacefulness of mind.

He is becoming restless, bored with the sameness of life behind and before the walls. Living secluded as he is means he can never come out of hiding, unless everyone is sleeping or too busy with their own affairs to notice his presence.

 

_Nothing can cheer him, neither the chase nor falcons,_

 

Oh but he doesn’t get lonely, he tells himself. Rats usually keep him company. They are harmless when they wish to be, but on other occasions they bug him so much he has no other choice but to punish them, digging his teeth in their bellies until they stop squirming, head falling back and body slackening under the pressure of his jaws.

Such an occurrence happens often enough that he has long since ceased to consider such treatment as a punishment. When Yakov and Lilia were gone, on trips that would never last longer than a month at most, he had so little to eat that he fed himself off anything that came at reach. Rats, leaves and the occasional fruit or vegetable from their grove that hadn’t grown ripe enough or was, on the contrary, so rotten it nearly melted between his fingers. They don’t complain. They never have.

Someone, he cannot tell who, had once told him that in order to love animals, you had to love humans first. To this day he still fails to see how a person could be so terribly wrong about such a matter. You couldn't love either to love the other, not when one species treats you better than the other one would. Humans think themselves so superior, so mighty and untouchable, but he knows what terrible things they are capable of. Everyone knows that monsters, real monsters aren't unleashed come nightfall. No; the worst of them live by day as they live by night, they dare to expose themselves to the world and commit their worst deeds in broad daylight for everyone to see. For once one masters the art for smuggling before the eyes of the world, one can get away with about everything and anything, even – especially – the most gruesome crime. The longer he grows crowded in his rooms and passageways, the more he loathes mankind and its very existence.

 

_Nor his people dying before his balcony._

 

* * *

 

He joins Lilia afterwards in the kitchen as she finishes the last touches for dinner. He had wanted to help her with tonight's meal, never once moving from his spot at Lilia's side while she busied herself with all preparations. But as usual he finds himself watching her movements from the sidelines, seated in his usual chair at the kitchen table. Her steady hands expertly peel tomatoes and carrots, cutting them into even wedges and rolling them onto themselves to carve delicate red and orange roses. She places them at the bottom of each mould, alongside slices of boiled eggs that are still runny from lack of cooking. Rich, hot pork broth simmers on top of the oven, steam escaping the lid from the small hole and permeating the room with the smell of boiled meat.

 

They would be having kholodets tonight, for their penultimate meal together. Lilia had taken care of making additional ones should they run out of food during the next days, but there was a scarce chance of this happening. Chris had just come in to refill the pantry; Yakov had already finished the arrangements for plane tickets to Moscow, and a cab would be coming to pick them up in two days’ time. They would be staying with Mila and Georgi’s parents for about a month, more or less, until things should have recovered for his cousins. Beyond these few details, he knew next to nothing. But surely the situation must have been pressing enough for them to settle everything in less than three weeks.

 

There is, however, an undeniable sense of apprehension that seems to hover between them, to permeate the house in its stillness. An unspoken, impending spell that locks them all together, anticipating, waiting to be broken. Like Christmas come early, but lacking the bright decorations and the sheer ceremony they always maintained so carefully.

 

He leans in against the palm Lilia presses on his shoulder as she passes by his chair, a ghost touch that dares not come closer. Her hands are warm and restrained underneath her plastic gloves, so close to him he can almost smell the notes of her perfume wafting from the heart of her wrists, and the meat she has been slicing into thin pieces. Fine brown shreds of it cling to the material, microscopic but still visible against the glistening material.

 

“You can sleep in your room tonight”, she speaks softly, as if she were telling him a secret of which he shall be the only holder.

Her statement confuses him. Isn't he using his room already, the guest bedroom in which he had spent most of his time since its last occupant’s stay? What room does she mean by "his"? She couldn’t possibly be meaning the laundry room, or even the other bedroom...

No doubt sensing his inner conflict, she adds offhandedly: “Make sure to change sheets and air the room early tomorrow morning if you do, though. Yuuri is coming home at noon.”

 

Ah, there it is. The answer to all of his questions that he couldn’t put in words up until now. Yuuri is coming home tomorrow at noon.

How strange. He hasn’t come to this point where he could freely speak his name out loud, or even inside his mind, only visualizing him as “the boy” who was sure to come and “take care of him” soon. He hadn’t thought that “soon” would be so close, and yet here he was. Here they were, a month later from the first time he had laid eyes on him, in the same place seated at the same table, looking yet again at his pictures. He’s taken to playing with the photos of Yuuri. The pictures, which used to be shiny and neatly printed are now dog-eared, crinkled at all sides from manipulation, speckles of ink catch on his fingers like dust that he brushes off on the fabric of his pants.

 

“Handsome fella”, Chris voices from the doorway, almost startling him out of his reverie. He briefly nods in Victor’s direction but his attention wavers as fast as it came, focused on the pictures spread all over the table. The golden irises flit from one corner to the other, making him realize that the tabletop is entirely buried under pictures of Yuuri. His fingers freeze over them, spreading to cover the one placed underneath his palm. Chris doesn’t appear to notice the change.

 

“So he’s coming tomorrow eh? You must be happy, Victor” he chuckles lowly as he moves behind him to place his bearings in order.

 

Fat, round eggs sit in the palm of each hand and align themselves in the refrigerator door. Several cartons of milk, blinding white with red strips of grass are arranged inside the cupboard, alongside several bags of nut assortments and raisins, bags of cereals and a newly-refilled bottle of olive oil. From the sides of the plastic bag that hangs on his shoulder, he guesses easily what it hides: the red slabs of meat and heavy ham leave salt wafting in the air, complementing the cooling, wobbly aspic left to rest on the counter. Good, rich food, packed with nutrients and fibres. The perfect diet for their guest.

 

“Of course he is,” Lilia answers, and though her response is meant for Chris, her eyes are on Victor only. Or rather, on the pictures he has sprawled out. The yellow, low light emanating from the light bulb enhances the dark circles under her eyes, pupils wide open and taking in his mess. The contentment in her voice doesn’t match the pinched corners of her mouth, twisted in a frown that looks quite shaky. He frowns back, blue eyes searching for the cause of her quiet distress, until the tip of her fingers brush the side of one photograph. A red nail runs along a round, pale cheekbone, fingering falling locks of hair above the surface; gently, as one does when handling precious and fragile things, though the corner of the nail rakes profoundly enough to dig a line along the bone.

 

_It had taken Lilia a month before she broke down in tears, sinking to her knees in the halls of the house, under Victor’s watchful gaze._

 

Save for his ancestry and his history… Yuuri does look a little like Anya.

 

_It must have been so much for her, too much for her to handle on her own._

_Anastasia and Vladimir’s deaths._

_Mila and Georgi going back to Russia, one blind and the other stuck in a wheelchair._

_The fights with Yakov._

_Anya, pregnant._

 

Without thinking, his fingers come to brush her own over the small photograph. Surprised, Lilia turns her attention to him. His gaze never once wavers from her own, as one finger slips under the picture, right where the boy’s neck should be.

 

“ _I’ll make this better, Aunt Lilia,” he whispers as he gets down on his knees next to her. She blindly accepts his embrace, sobbing into his silver hair. “I promise I will.” The same words his father had used the night of his death, parting from his only son._

 

His fingers snap together, briskly folding the small photo in two. When he folds them back, a thin, powdery white line cuts through Yuuri’s neck.

 

_The ludicrous ballads of his favourite clown_

_No longer smooth the brow of this cruel invalid;_

 

Lilia’s smile twists in a wry, secretive manner. It stirs something pleasant in him, seeing Lilia smile. Smiles suit her better than frowns. “Yes. We cannot wait to have Yuuri here with us.”

 

 _Vladimir Nikiforov had_ _driven_ _his own wife_ _off a bridge,_ _out of love for his son. And he would get Anya_ _and her spawn_ _out of the way for Lilia._

 _A Nikiforov always protects his loved ones. Even at the cost of_ _someone else’s_ _li_ _fe._

 

* * *

 

Something rouses him from his sleep.

Early morning light streams in the room through a gap between the curtains, tracing down a path from the windowsill to the other side of the room, venturing deep into the hall through the open door. He lies in bed in a state of semi-consciousness, his body almost on the edge of the mattress, toeing the line between air and thread. The lids of his eyes weight down on him, flipping back and forth over his irises like the pages of a novel, clearing his sight and blurring it at the same time. They command him to sleep, to drown back into the covers that still smell like him, but his attention is elsewhere.

The door opposite his own is open ajar, wide enough for the eye to be filled by its contents alone. A bedroom with a low ceilings, walls draped under a dark, crimson wallpaper that shone like fresh paint, long thick curtains drawn back on each side of the window. Rays fill the room, bathing it in dusky hues and leaving it in half-darkness. The bed sits at the centre of the room, its end the most prominent part peeking from behind the open door.

And on the bed, Sasha.

 

_His bed, adorned with fleurs-de-lis, becomes a grave;_

 

Sasha, soon-to-be Victor. He stands upright on the edge of the bed, tiny hands keeping him from falling off. His face ashen pale; lips two petals of powdery pink, their surface smooth as egg shells under close examination and glossy, wet-looking. The eye equal to his own, though unblinking and motionless, painted an uncanny, cruel and cold shade of sapphire, gleaming and narrowed; like twin wells overflowing with azure, still waters. Dressed in the finest clothes, bathed in perfumes and varnish to hide the scent of decay and death. So alike and yet unlike himself in some way, with his own hair matted and greasy, his skin a flat, dingy grey with specks of dust and soil and heavens knows what else scattered across it.

Oh, how he desires to smack his pretty little face, wipe the subtly smile off his porcelain lips with a single blow, watch him topple to the ground and break into a thousand pieces. His wretched, abomination of a brother.

 

It can’t have been him who suddenly woke him up. The light is too grey at this time of the day to blind him. Rain pits into the glass with enough deafening strength to almost bore holes into them, and yet it doesn’t give nor does it split the silence reigning in the house.

 

And then...he hears it.

A soft pitter patter akin to the trickle of morning dew, lining down the roof and dripping on the first step of the entrance, a steady note that makes the floor sink under a regular, linear pattern. He finds himself echoing the light symphony, instinctively responding to this call of nature, sinking back into the shadows of the walls as openings shift behind him.

The air shifts, too, with every step he takes towards the hall leading to the back of the house. The passageway he crawls his way through feels cramped, closing onto him as he advances, still he keeps going forward in search of the sound, almost flying across the boards. The atmosphere becomes alive, bursting forth in sharp intakes and controlled exhales that sound nearly painful when they breach lips, like a man who had been moments away from choking and who was progressively regaining control of his lungs. Not loud, but high pitched enough to break the silence, as if it were embarrassed by its own voice. As if it were afraid to forget how to breathe, no matter how innate it was. His body becomes very still upon the realization, arms falling rigid at his sides, and nerves tensing inside him. His lips set into a hard, thin line, nose wrinkling in distaste at the intrusion.

 

His feet rush soundlessly on the hardwood, and it isn’t long before he can slip from a corner into the hall of the main entrance.

 

His eyes widen behind the mask, blinking rapidly then openly tensing to take him in. His gaze falls entirely on the newcomer, carefully perusing his movements. He feels some of the tension being released from his muscles, as his lips part slightly and he tilts his body closer to the source of its curiosity.

 

_The lady's maids, to whom every prince is handsome,_

_No longer can find gowns shameless enough_

_To wring a smile from this young skeleton._

 

An hourglass shape stands before him, back turned away, its shoulders dropping slightly under the pressure of a tense, invisible line that bent them a little. Messy black hair springs up atop a small head, a nest of short cow-licks. The head itself rested on a long, thin and swan-like neck partly hidden by a black scarf. The clothes they wear seem scruffy and worn-out, a beige coat that sags on their back and wraps around their frame like a blanket, and faded jeans.

 

“Yuuri,” someone calls out of the blue, startling him out of his daze. The head glances back, over the shoulders, and he holds his breath as he sinks back against the wall. He finds himself swallowing back his breath as drooping eyelids and sunken eyes peruse the hall in response to the voice. There is nothing terribly attractive about him, especially in his current tired state.

 

And yet… and yet there is something about him. A little "je ne sais quoi". Something in the way he holds himself, his shoulders shrunken onto his form and his head hanging low, but unconsciously poised like a dancer, ready to move at the first call. The curve of his lips, stretched in a lingering smile, slightly parted to reveal a clandestine peek of pearly white teeth and the tip of a pink tongue. The brown eyes unfocused from behind glasses, burning vivaciously as they take in every detail. The way he removes his feet from his shoes, tip of toes wriggling under the socks in contact with the cool air. They are very small, he notes, the ankles so thin they would probably fit in the palm of his hands, barely the size of his wrist. So very easy to twist, and break. And oh, how easy it would be to tighten that black scarf and strangle him! He would gasp out for air, taken aback, and his knees would hit the floor in a dry, bone-shattering thud. His face would pale in front of him, under him, lips parted, and eyes wide open, silently questioning as he would choke onto thin air, his panting breaths a symphony given human form.

 

Yuuri. Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri, his name like a promise hanging on the tip of his own tongue.

 

Only a few minutes spent in the house, and yet Yuuri Katsuki is already a riddle. One he is set on solving, even if it should be the death of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trivia:  
> \- "pull the bobbin and the latch will go up" was taken from the tale "Little Red Riding Hood", Perrault's version. Interpretations from psychanalists such as Bruno Bettelheim include thinking of the famous line not only as directions on how to open the door, but also as a metaphor and mimicry of sexual penetration.  
> \- the "fleur-de-lis" referenced in the poem are meant to be translated as "lilies" in English. Coincidentally, the wallpaper of Victor's "room" (the guest bedroom) is adorned with lilies. Coincidentally, the female version of Yuuri's name can be translated as "lilies", though his means "courage".
> 
> UPDATE: No promises on deadlines, but you'll probably have to wait at least two weeks for the next chapter. I've got two more weeks of classes to go before I'm all set. I initially considered writing for Knock Yuuri Up Week but I don't think th timing is working in my favour on that one. I've got pretty big assignments coming and I'd rather focus on the last tests when I'm not working on the Erlking. I'm saving the ideas, but they'll be for another time.
> 
> I already know how the story ends, I already have the last line, and I have this plot twist in mind that keeps me from updating the third installment sooner. I might change my mind afterwards and publish one of the possible endings, but it remains up for debate...
> 
> Also is anyone out there feeling like reading YuriYuu? I have this dope idea for a YuriYuu slasher-like crossover with Five Nights at Freddy's, and I'd like opinions :D  
> (glances back at other ideas: no no I haven't forgotten you, promise)
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated, even if they're short things :) I can get very chatty too, so if you have questions or you want to discuss, hmu!


	5. The company of wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First impressions are everything.
> 
> All love stories have to start somewhere. One's end meets another's beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, like the previous ones, deals heavily with psychology and gender roles. The Orestes complex in particular refers to the son's unconscious desire to kill his mother; it's closely linked to the Oedipus complex. I used Carl Jung's essay on the Mother Archetype to establish gender roles presented in the chapter, essentially a dichotomy between the Great Mother and the Evil Mother (both concepts, I think, speak for themselves).
> 
> The lovely saniika actually sent me an ask not so long ago asking me to detail Victor's mommy issues, which you can find here:  
> http://saniika.tumblr.com/post/173035060779/hey-ali-i-remember-i-exchanged-some-comments-on

Movement catches his eye as Yuuri advances deeper into the hall. Sunlight streams through the windows, seeps in between the folds of the heavy curtains and spreads across the wooden floor. For the briefest of seconds, the smooth ripple of the curtain on the hardwood floor opens the door to room inside his mind that he doesn’t recognize at first, until the familiarity of abstract wood and fabric hits him. More than a room, a nook or a corner of a fixed point in time of which he had never crossed the threshold, only picturing it so vividly with his imagination and the shadow of a memory to guide him.

 

“ _You know, I fell in love with your mother on a stage.”_

 

Vladimir’s most redeeming quality, if there was ever one, was his storytelling skill. While he had made very little use of it over the years, confined to other places as he himself had been to his room, his recollection always were so vivid he wouldn’t have needed anything else to visualize his tales. His father’s voice alone used to conjure snapshots with a panoramic effect to them, and before his eyes a décor supplanted a canvas. Then came the artefacts, the lights and costumes, and then the people. An actor, two actors, one man and the other a woman. A vision almost unrecognisable in its novelty and resurfacing.

 

The stage lights pool on the surface of her dress, casting shadows on the silk and painting her skin black as her arms move, her right knee put forward and the left drawn back, as if ready to pounce on her unknowing – or should he say naïve? – prey. Thick black tresses flowing loosely down her back and shoulders, curls dishevelled and blending with her skirts. Some strands fell in front of her face though they did little to obscure her dark eyes and pale complexion. But shadowed as she was whenever the light lost its focus on her, her skin might have been of a darker shade, black as night and unearthly, the goddess Kali herself come to life.

 

“ _How to forget? It was a Euripides play. I was Hyppolitus and well, of course she was –”_

 

From the folds of red black arms rise, quadrupled extensions of her limbs, and Phaedra emerges from the darkness. Her appearance was, he thought, quite fascinating. It held the predatory dance of a mantis, prowling around her prey like the feline spirit the goddess Aphrodite had bestowed upon her in revenge for her son’s deeds. Her fingers clawed at her stepson in a fit of despair, alternately writhing with arachnid quality and tightening from barely-concealed jealousy and rage. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and yet her face was nearly disfigured by anger, lips curled in an animalistic hunger that went beyond her control.

 

Now he could hear her voice and recognize it with clarity, imagine its octaves as they shook under the weight of her burden, transcending through the myriad of colours and transfixed movement; unrestrained, in perfect accord with her withered, skeletal body. She remained mesmerizing as ever caught in the throes of her deadly passions, the power of her vocal cords ringing through the palace, booming through a stage painted in blinding, sun-kissed white and sand shades. For a split second he had found her beautiful, the epitome of elegance and power, black tresses flowing on her shoulders and back down her silken dress. A substitute for the goddess of love, suggesting the devastating power of her mischief and desire, dreamy and sensual all at once.

 

“ _You must find it strange, but what can I say? Back then I was mad about her.”_

 

But no glamour could eclipse her madness. Brought face-to-face with her ungrateful, worthless son, the queen became but the embodiment of agony: white-faced and love-stricken, desperately grasping at her womb and throat as if her insides were about to burst. Spilling blood, hers and Hyppolitus’ own, ridden by guilt and conscious culpability. The similarities were rather uncanny between the two loving, but terrible mothers, one the impersonator and the other the impersonated. Both were creatures who claimed to act for the greater good of their sex, in the face of passion and all-consuming darkness. But how could one trick themselves into believing they were the superior power? How one could wish to attain love such as this, how anyone could find such a destructive force so appealing, was beyond him.

 

For all that they were, humans would never be considered as harmless. He preferred to them the charms of animals, insects most of all. Long ago, some time before he had gotten Makkachin and found himself empathizing best with dogs., he had fancied himself to be a spider. A small, round and hairy little thing that was but a combination of eyes and fangs bursting with life and malice, surreptitiously hidden in dark and tight corners, going about its business of confectioning its new web… until its prey should move the environing air and make itself known. And startled it would set off to investigate, swift legs moving over ridges and planes and taking him quietly to its newly-found toy, touching down and crawling stealthily closer, closer, ever closer…

 

Reality settles in as the distance progressively shrinks between them. Every blink brings him forward, like the soft pitter patter of imaginary legs clicking on the hardwood floor. It is, he finds, rather like imitating Makkachin’s walk whenever his faithful companion was on the hunt, chasing after butterflies and moths of all kinds. He paws, taking in every detail, his eyes duplicating until they should become a thousand, roaming endless miles of pale skin from head to toe. And yet with every step he takes, the prey moves a few feet forward, walking a distance that stretches further away from his reach. The heels that rise with every flex and pull of nimble toes and hard muscles are almost mocking in their stride, and when at last it looks like he could flex his fingers and just touch, he meets only fabric.

 

Marred with specks of dust and particles of rock, faux leather and rubber sticks to his palm, wet with morning dew and torn in parts where the surface still works to pull itself as far as possible, desperate to fill in rough, naked grey spots that have been worn by time and its owner. The soles are battered at the side, angling inwards and naturally leaning into themselves. Tufts of cotton, curly and woollen cling to the insides. Warmth permeates the textile, slightly damp and fresh, reminiscent of the person who had previously filled its confines. The seams and sides seem paper-thin, discoloured as they are and barely holding themselves together with the shoe. His hands almost swallow them whole, folding them in two as one seizes a bird, squeezing a frail body of bones and feathers that pulls at its joints, showing futile resistance. Were they filled, he would be sure that a crack would have been inevitable.

 

What a shame, that he shouldn’t be able to experience it for himself, this keen contact between his palm and the sole of another person’s feet slipping over it, trustfully being man-handled by another, unaware of any danger, left bare in the most vulnerable way a man could ever be. And yet even dressed as he is, his feet almost naked save for the wet socks clinging to them, Yuuri pulls a resistance that is futile in spite of his best efforts. He pictures the slope of his shoulders, curved in a taut shape that makes his back a little less straight than he initially thought. Part of his shirt had slipped at the junction between his supple neck and collarbone, revealing smooth, untarnished skin that follows the movement of his body as he leans closer, taking in what is in front of him. Although he bends his head in a manner too hunched for it to be merely curiosity, the rest of him arching in response to a series of invisible cords. Short-sighted, he guesses, given the fact that Yuuri uses glasses.

Oh but what a wholly different world Yuuri must live in, compared to him. He imagines his vision to cause him to squint a lot, forcing him to lean over to see things better from afar; how blurry it must be to glance above the lenses, how sharp the contrast must turn out to be, to be deprived of a crystal-clear vision and have to live in an incomprehensible world full of mysteries and hidden traps! But even now, seeing Yuuri like this was like standing with a blindfold over his eyes, a thin veil of dust standing between them, as the shape that loomed in the distance danced like a shadow under the light, further away from him and yet close enough to reach.

 

Yuuri was... real. Not just a fantasy, not a figment of his imagination that had been nurtured by a month of waiting. He was real, and he had come into the house, his house. Yuuri was finally here.

 

And then Chris had had to steal him away.

 

The golden locks on Chris’ head capture beams of light as he emerges from the cloistered darkness, entering his field of vision and, from the slight jump in his composure, Yuuri’s own. He almost jumps too whilst backing into the window, but manages to steady himself in time to slip away, hiding in a corner of the hall to watch them from afar. He was good at pretending he wasn’t there; it was a skill he had learnt and perfected during all those years locked away inside the house, through its corridors and within its rooms and walls. His hands drop at his side, Yuuri’s shoes dangle limply in his right grip, hanging from where the laces keep them suspended in the air.

 

“I’m the grocery boy,” Chris introduces himself as, oddly enough stammering his way through his words in a way he doesn’t remember ever witnessing when in front of strangers. “Or rather grocery man.” Clearing of throat. An easy, lazy smile dancing on his lips. Ah. So there was still a bit of Chris in him after all. “I own the shop actually. And you’re here for the nanny job.”

Yuuri doesn’t seem to mind his initial awkwardness, saluting him back. If anything, his shoulders sagging slightly is an indication that he feels a little more at ease in company. “I prefer the term “babysitter” but yeah, I am.” His voice is so low he almost thinks that he imagined his words, only to receive confirmation from Chris – through a low hum – that he indeed heard him. It is unlike anything he had thought. Where he had imagined a rough tone, or even a slightly pitched one, Yuuri’s voice is very soft. The kind that speaks volumes even at a slow, still pace, with lilts as natural and musical as wind blowing between tree leaves and flower petals.

“I’ve got some groceries to unpack downstairs, if you wanna join me” Chris continues. “I could give you a tour of such exotic locations, er, as the pantry, the bread bin, does that interest you?”

He would have scoffed first, if Yuuri hadn’t done it before him. But it was entertaining, watching him like that. It felt like watching a play or a live show from up close, not just peering up from the front seat or looming behind the curtains backstage, but truly spending the night at the theatre. Witnessing actors on a film set, the camera close enough to focus on them and them only, as if they were the only people in the room, the only ones that mattered. Oblivious puppets, blissfully unaware and all too happy to play for his own amusement.

“Sounds great, sure,” Yuuri agrees. “I’ll be right behind you.”

 

* * *

 

Sneaking at the back of the house from the entrance is easy. The view from the trees that rise from the lawn, their vines shielding him from sight comes nowhere near watching them from up close, but it is very satisfying nonetheless. He imagines this is how the animals, all of the wildlife sees them from the outside, gazing at the inside of a house through an open window in the way of a bird on the hunt – perhaps in the ways of a raven, perched on a tree branch that teased the sill a few inches shy of entering the house, a crow seeking his treasures with a keen eye, perusing the interiors in search of gold.

The only gold he finds is that of Chris’ locks and gaze, the latter entirely focused on Yuuri alone. He can tell, even from afar, that it makes him quite uneasy to be in his presence. It isn’t so much shyness, as it is lack of disinterest, and tension. He would be uncomfortable too if the Swiss were to come onto him, and was thankful that such an occurrence had never taken place within the household. Yuuri is equally nonplussed, to his surprise, something which Chris appears to share. No matter how much he bats those irresistible eyelashes of his, the very ones that had had nannies of all ages fall into his net, Yuuri doesn’t express anything beyond professionalism. Chris’ face, for lack of a better word, is rather priceless.

“So you’re Japanese, yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s my first trip to the UK.”

“Alright let me guess… Tokyo right?”

Yuuri rolls his eyes, but quickly schools his expression into one of amusement rather than annoyance. “Hasetsu,” he corrects, putting carrots in the vegetable crate. “I doubt you would have known that.”

“Oh.” There’s a small pout on Chris’ lips he’d like to wipe away, preferably with his own teeth. It disappears as fast as it came.

“What brings you here anyway?” Chris squints. “You look familiar, too. Have I seen you around?”

Yuuri laughs nervously. “What's around?” he gestures at the kitchen, which seems to be enough for the blond, who smiles in return. It however stirs something in him that is too complex to be put in only one word. Chris _knows_ just as well as him that Yuuri is blatantly lying to him. He may not know as much about the younger man as he or Lilia and Yakov, and yet he is aware of Yuuri’s occupations outside of this world. And yet there is something about the entire ordeal that only wishes that the Swiss would let it go. Chris is as informed about Yuuri as anyone else in the house, and he would like it to remain that way. If he were to find out all of his dirty little secrets before he should, then there would be nothing left for him to play with.

“Weird, you know I’m usually good at these things, I’ve got a touch of the gift.”

Yuuri squints, and he finds himself copying his gesture, though his own is hidden behind the mask, curious of what Chris has planned. “The gift?”

The blond man shrugs. “Prognosticate, clairvoyance, whatever you want to call it. You know, my grandma used to read tea leaves and my mother reads palms.”

“And what do you read?” Yuuri asks, playing his game in turn, though not believing a single word of it.

Chris smirks. “Nothing. But I've been told I'm pretty good at reading people in general.”

He inhales sharply. “Are you now?” Yuuri answers back, less self-assured than before.

Chris simply shrugs. “Well that's what most people tell me.” Yuuri hopes that he will leave it to that, but of course he won't. “So... what do we have here?”

“Chris –” Yuuri starts, losing his smile all-together.

“You’re a … writer, from Hasetsu, Japan. It looks like … you came here to be inspired by the English countryside, to get away from the … hustle and bustle of your life in the city.” Chris takes care to pause in between each part, drawing out the words and Yuuri’s attention in the span of seconds.

Yuuri visibly fights the smile forming on his lips, a strange twist that looks as forced as it appears genuine,“No.”

Chris doesn’t back down, though. “Close!”

“Hum…” Yuuri bites his lips in consideration. “Oh wait! No.”

Chris chuckles good-humouredly. “Okay okay, one more try.”

“Aaah, I see what we got there. It’s so obvious now.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes, but smiles encouragingly nevertheless. “Course.”

“You're... on the run, far away from home. You could have gone back, but there's something out there that makes you stay away. Which is why you're here. So tell me,” he leans towards Yuuri, making the younger man take a step back, “what are you running from? Someone? Something?”

Yuuri shutters under the scrutiny of his gaze.

Oh, it dawns on him. There is secrecy in his rebuttal, something Chris obviously doesn’t know and that he can never know.

Would Lilia be in the secret? She hadn’t been clear on the circumstances of his retirement from figure skating, only stating that he was taking time off from his career for a while.

Thankfully Chris seems to sense that he's made him uncomfortable. Before he can try to play it off, Yuuri clears his throat. “What are the Feltsmans like, anyway?”

Chris scratches his beard a little, lost in thought. “Lilia and Yakov? They are nice enough, as far as grouchy people, but you get used to it. Quite generous too, if you're worried about the pay. I've never met any other delivery boy as well paid as I am.”

Yuuri nods. “Alright then. And what is Victor like?”

The smile fades from Chris' face and eyes as quickly as it had appeared. The joker had been pulled from its deck, and he wouldn’t be able to answer.

“Ah, yeah. About that, I should tell you...”

But before he can go on, the door opens behind them. Yuuri turns only to fall back as a massive form tackles him to the ground. He gasps as said form starts to bark and lick at his cheeks, paws keeping him down and pressing into his sides. He laughs as the dog – a poodle, he identifies with a pang – keeps licking at him enthusiastically.

"Makkachin, down!" a dry voice calls the dog back to their side. Yuuri lifts his head to find himself facing Lilia Baranovskaya.

 

Huh, he ponders, caught off guard himself. He hadn’t heard the car parking into the alleyway, nor the engine halt as the tires screeched onto the pavement. He watches, intrigued, as Lilia pries the poodle off of Yuuri, keeping him from bouncing again as Yuuri gets up again and Chris sets off the other way. Makkachin struggles under Lilia’s grip, tongue wagging out of his mouth, heavily panting, his beady eyes fixed on Yuuri as if he wanted to tackle him again. And yet he discerned no hostility in his gaze. Interesting.

 

Lilia squints at the young man, seemingly seizing him up with a single twitch of her green eyes. The motion is enough to make both Yuuri and Chris recoil, hands folding at their sides or behind their back. He has to pinch his own lips together, suppressing the chuckle at the back of his throat. Lilia is often prone to being unimpressed at people’s attempts to please her, and now is no exception. She looks him up and down, taking in his state, her gaze focusing last on his feet. Lilia must have known that it would be part of his customs, and in other circumstances she probably would have appreciated Yuuri’s thoughtfulness – the wooden floor could get so dirty, especially in a weather as ghastly as the one they had in the country. But this was no average circumstance, and their guest of honour was no simpleton. His aunt’s keen eyes were sure to perceive things that even he would know little of. Though the dance training had been an excuse to lure his new nanny out of Japan, Yuuri would have undoubtedly caught her interest as a performer, sooner or later.

He almost pities him. While he is impeccably dressed, no matter how worn-out his clothes may be and how stained his socks are from dew and darker, familiar spots, his stomach bulges slightly under his shirt, and his tights threaten to burst at the seams of the tight pants clinging to him. He’d been a little soft on himself. And from the way Yuuri’s cheeks coloured a bright pink, he knows that Yuuri most probably thought the same thing.

After what feels like forever she decides to break their mutual silence, her face more neutral. "And where are your shoes?"

The corners of his mouth stretch a little more, pleased at the question. A trick question, considering that she knows exactly where they are. Yuuri’s face colours even more than he’d thought it possible. Such openness!

"I er, I left them by the front door," Yuuri stammers. But he quickly regains his composure as soon as he realizes that Lilia’s expression doesn't waver, and hurries past her to get back to the entrance and his luggage. But he wouldn’t find anything, of course. After a beat, Lilia sighs, then turns to follow Yuuri out of the room. She briefly stops before crossing the threshold, glancing back at the window and meeting his gaze. Lilia nods at him, eyes barely flinching, the ghost of a smile on her face. Then turns back, the sound of her heels clicking on the hardwood.

He follows her motion the opposite way, to the woodshed. By the time Yuuri should have recovered from the shock finding his shoes gone and shuffled inside his luggage to find another pair or have Lilia relieve him from his efforts, he would be long gone. Makkachin’s distant barks accompany him as he makes a run for the back of the house, his loyal companion no doubt trying to find him by scent. Yakov’s voice booms a few meters away, calling Makkachin by his side, causing the sound of his paws clicking on the floor to change directions. He suppresses a sigh as he enters the woodshed and makes a dash for the back, heading for the tunnel entry he knows to be hidden behind a few crates. It is probably for the best. Lilia wouldn’t be happy if Makkachin were to follow him in the tunnels and come back to the surface dirty.

The underground passageways are as cramped as he remembers them, the memory all too vivid even after spending so long at the surface; damp and raw with the smell of dirt and decaying flesh of rodents and other beings alike. He lowers himself to his knees, inhales deeply, then crouches as he slips inside. His fingers dig into the soil and his clothes tear slightly under the added pressure of rocks underneath them. Some fragments scrape against exposed skin and dig into it, eliciting sharp hisses from him, but he has no time to dwell on the sting they left. He would have time to treat them later. In spite of the darkness that imbues the labyrinth of passages, he knows the way to every room, every nook like the back of his hand, and finds his path amid the cobwebs that line each corner he turns, the leaking water-pipes and the dust that litters the back of every wall.

It isn’t long before the make-shift, rickety stairs and ladders lead him to Lilia and Yakov’s room; light filters through microscopic holes in the wallpaper, a warm golden hue that emanates directly from the window that he knows to be in front of him. The rays are swallowed momentarily by dark, coming back sporadically, dancing on the planks at his back to the rhythm of boards sinking under one’s weight and pacing inside the room. He raises a single, solemn hand, and knocks lightly on the wood. The rasp of two knuckles on the material echoes in the silence that settles in, behind the scene and before it. Clear, startled aquamarine meets his vision, before settling into a calmer state as it blinks several times. Yakov is here, and if his movements are as telling as always, Sasha is, too. Sat up straight in his chair like a little prince, the doll looks forward, impeccably dressed in a navy blue suit, a crisp white shirt, black tie and leather shoes. It keeps its gaze determinedly turned from him, blue eyes shielded by tufts of silver hair that cover his rosy cheeks and curl at the lip. It pays attention only to Yakov, who kneels in front of the chair and smooths down his pants as he mumbles to himself. From behind the door, if he strains his ear, he can hear Lilia's voice, asking Yuuri is he is ready to see them. The door knob already shakes under her grasp. It _is_ all very exciting.

The door opens sharply, almost knocked back against the wall as the two of them step inside the bedroom. Yakov remains leaning over Sasha, until Lilia’s interpellation forces him to stand _._ He must have smiled, for Yuuri gives him one of his own, barely perceptible, polite and distant at once.

“Mr. Katsuki,” Yakov greets with a gruff voice, and extends his hand for Yuuri to shake, a good distance away from him. Seeing that he won't move, Yuuri steps forward to take his wrinkled hand, their wrists rising and falling steadily, hanging in the air but never faltering. A perfect balance. Yuuri momentarily ceases to shake it, their joined fingers parting as both hands retreat, hanging limply to their sides. His eyes follow Yuuri’s gaze as it strays from the loosened grip to Yakov’s shoulder, brown irises unconsciously focusing on the grey hair that ends above the collar of his tweed jacket.

Yuuri’s eyes widen comically behind his glasses, the sclera almost swallowing his brown irises whole and bulging out of his head. His lips part into a small, nearly audible “oh” that remains lodged in his throat, clenched jaws locking it away. It would be funnier, if his reaction weren’t so relatable. Sasha tended to have that effect on people.

“Mr. Katsuki,” Lilia says, joining Yakov on the opposite side of the lounge chair, one hand pressing onto Sasha’s shoulder. “This is our nephew, Victor.”

No response. Yuuri, it seems, is as transfixed by Sasha as he is by the three of them, eyes darting back and forth between Lilia, Yakov and the masquerade of a person that is his brother. His eyelashes meet the top of his cheekbones at a frantic pace, blinking rapidly. His eyebrows knit themselves together in a thin, dark line partially hidden under his fringe. Lilia and Yakov, faced with his muteness, glance at each other from the corner of the eye.

Yuuri’s face retains its passivity until Chris' voice startles him, entering the bedroom and reaching past him. His blank facade melts slightly as he watches Chris approaching the chair, then bending over it.

“Good to see you, Victor,” he chimes as he smiles down at the doll, reaching out for its hand to shake. The arm flails in his grasp, then falls limply to its side. Sasha had never thought much of Chris beyond accepting his presence within the household as a regular occurrence. He spies Lilia smiling dotingly at the two of them, sickeningly sweet, Yakov watching the two of them and still darting a few glances at Yuuri.

Chris retreats to Yuuri's side, backing a small step away to stand beside him. Chris subtly leans against him, elbow barely jutting and digging into Yuuri’s back. Their eyes meet as Yuuri turns to him fully, then corresponds with a nod. Slowly, surely, Yuuri’s feet shuffle on the hardwood and towards the chair. The skin of his face becomes impossibly slack and tense all at once, the corners of his mouth pinching together, the small wrinkles that had formed on his forehead softening. Dimples form in his cheeks and his eyes close until they are only slits at the same level as Sasha’s beady gaze. His little hand slips in Yuuri’s own, inviting and closing in. Yuuri lets the appendage rest atop his palm, reddened enough for him to tell how warm his touch must be, pressed against the porcelain and shakes it; nearly oblivious of the stares he is the object of, unaware of what the rest of the world is like.

So this is how he is going to play it then? Interesting.

“Hello Victor. I'm Yuuri. I hope we can be friends in the future.”

 

* * *

 

To his surprise, Lilia seems to like Yuuri well enough, even though he's only been there for a couple of hours.

Lilia’s jabs, as expected, don’t leave Yuuri indifferent, her perusing alternatively bringing a flush to his cheeks and wiping all colour from his face. There is, however, acceptance in Yuuri’s motions and expressions. For every strike he takes, he stands upright and takes the blow, poised with his back up straight and his eyes lit with silent agreement. The young man still stiffens under her touch, his limbs acquiring this rigidity that is common to scolded flocks, but he is getting there. Lilia’s narcissistic probing had morphed from acceptance to nauseating sincerity towards the boy. If he didn’t know better, weren’t familiar with dancers’ subconscious moves, he would have thought Yuuri to be a military man, used to obeying and following orders without blinking, maybe even born to serve. There is something intuitive about the way he complies to her, perhaps a natural aptitude for submission and not shirking his duty.

There’s a certain familiarity in the way she handles him. The careful, professional distance she had built between them as she showed him the ropes has considerably shortened. Where they once stood facing each other from one side of the room, they are now nearly shoulder to shoulder, a foot’s breadth away.

They had set to work the moment Yakov had left them to their affairs, and Lilia had led Yuuri down to his – Sasha’s – bedroom to show him how he was to take care of him.

“You will wake him at 7 o’clock in the morning and you will dress him. You’ll find his clean clothes behind you.”

“Ok,” Yuuri nods, then casts his gaze on Lilia when faced with silence. “So…so I should?”

Lilia simply shrugs. “Wake him up and dress him, Mr. Katsuki, there’s not better way to learn than by doing it.”

Yuuri sets to work immediately, to his surprise, and not once with the barest hint of faltering in his task. Nevertheless he does look a little put-off at the prospect of dressing Sasha, his eyes taking in the details of his face and the rest of his body, exposing a defined torso and limbs as he progressively revealed skin. His nose wrinkles in disgust at the sight of the bulk between Sasha’s legs, but Yuuri seemed unable to turn a blind eye at the amount of detail that had been provided to this particular part of his anatomy, impressed as he was by the craftsmanship.

Lilia subtly nods from her position, an imperial tilt of her head that he almost fails to notice, and he knows Yuuri won’t have seen it either.

“You're a natural,” Lilia notes when he sets Victor – Sasha – back on the bed, tucking him in and smoothing the bedsheets.

“I have three nieces, back home.” Yuuri replies, eyes taking in the little one and the bed he lies in, noting how big the bed is for only one person, especially one as small as Sasha is.

“Back home,” Lilia repeats, transfixed by these two words in particular. When Yuuri turns enquiringly, she just shakes her head. “They must really love you.”

“They're little devils, but I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.” Yuuri laughs, a fond, foreign smile curving his lips.

Lilia frowns, a motion that goes unnoticed by the young man. “I do hope you won't feel too homesick here. You've seen so much of the world already...”

She comes to stand behind him, looking at the doll over his shoulder as she claps it. He feels himself stiffen just as Yuuri does, her nails digging into soft flesh, close to the bone. The motion feels a little maternal, save for the fact that her nails are digging into his flesh like a cat's with all too great familiarity.

“Let's move him downstairs,” she sighs with finality, letting go of him after what feels like forever. “Lunch is ready, and I have other things to show you.”

 

“Victor has three hours of lessons five days a week and I like to start by reading some poetry. Well, it doesn’t have to be poetry, any of these books will do, but you must read in a loud, clear voice” Lilia enunciates before handing him a random book which he dusts with the side of his hand, smoothing the cover.

“Yes, of course” he says, looking at the cover. A small cough on Lilia’s part makes him raise his head again, and the small nod she gives makes him backtrack. “I mean,” he clears his throat, his tone a little louder, devoid of mumbling, “yes, of course”. Lilia smiles approvingly.

“Excellent. Next is music appreciation. I understand that you have extensive knowledge in playing the piano so it shouldn’t be a problem…” she trails on, moving to the gramophone. Out of the corner of his eye he spies Sasha looking at the both of them. He had almost forgotten he was there, given how silent he was.

He hadn’t left Lilia’s side until now, the woman having not once let go of the doll, coddling it and leaning it over her shoulder. Yuuri squints curiously at him, seemingly engaged in a staring contest in which he has already anticipated his loss. Sasha slumps on his seat as Lilia goes on about the joys of music, slipping away and coming to his rest on his left side. It doesn’t take long for Lilia, and consequently Yuuri, to notice it.

“Oh Victor!” She goes to him, and adjusts his position again. “You must sit up straight, like a good little boy,” she coos, and presses her blood-red lips to his pale cheek. Yuuri smiles a little at the interaction, or so he assumes. His lips stretch in a thin, wobbly line that doesn’t stay for long.

“As I was saying: music, Mr. Katsuki. I don’t know how Victor could go on without his music. It’s his world. Of course he likes rather louder than I prefer but it gives him so much joy I don’t dare take it away from him.”

Yuuri practically jumps when the record starts playing, the soprano’s voice booming in the air and echoing through the walls as she launches in an Italian aria, the volume so high it covers any other sound. He can’t even hear his own breathing, or the whistling wind outside the windows.

 

She guides him through the halls of the ground-floor, taking him on a tour of the main rooms and the dining room prior to eating. Lilies and roses adorn every room, a symphony of red that blossoms at every corner, each flower infused with rich blood in its veins. They stand alongside the mounted heads of deer and bears, openly displayed above the mantle of the chimney and on the walls of every passageway, all noble creatures. A small glass exhibit of lures, bouquets of grey and brown feathers of all shapes and sizes threaded with long, fur-like strands of auburn and black colour stands above the key cabinet.

“Hunting trophies,” Lilia clarifies, pointing at each every single one. most of which are Yakov and Victor’s. “Naturally I don’t expect you to bring Victor out for hunting, but I’ve found that a walk every now and then in the forest can be… quite reinvigorating and refreshing in such a small county.”

Yuuri nods. “I saw the woods on the way to the house. They’re magnificent.”

“They are, aren’t they? I daresay untainted by humanity.” Lilia turns fully to him, her voice a tad hesitant but lacking any hint of self-consciousness. “I should add that east of the forest is the family graveyard. I wouldn’t insult you by asking that you take some time one day to clean around it a little?” Yuuri nods solemnly, prompting her to continue. “Nothing much really, just pull out the weeds and put in some new flowers. And maybe…” she pauses. “Oh, nevermind.”

But Yuuri doesn’t appear ready to relent. If anything, he appears all too happy to indulge her. “You were saying?”

Lilia crosses her arms over her chest, sighing softly as she shakes her head. “I was going to ask if you would also be so kind as to pray for them, but that would be too much of me to ask you. I don’t even know if you are religious.”

“Oh I don’t mind.”

Lilia turns to him again, elegant eyebrow raised, disbelieving.“What do you believe in, child?”

“I...” Yuuri takes a moment to think about it, frowning slightly, gathering his ideas. “I’d say that I just like to think there are higher powers at work in this world. Makes it reassuring.”

Lilia’s expression is a mixture of confusion and softness. “What do you mean, exactly?”

Yuuri shrugs, gazing up at one of the animals impaled above them, at the lifeless, but vivid dark eyes. “Everything.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri agrees to the first glass of wine at lunch, though something on his face tells him he probably won’t ask for more afterwards. Like Lilia he subtly spreads his mouth open to drink, keeping his lips from touching the rim But for all his efforts, the trick hasn’t worked its wonders. When Yuuri pulls the glass back, setting it before him beside his plate, twin crescents wink at him from the top of the glass. Not simply wet and blotched but thick, consistent with a translucent base that has smeared the glass. A balm of some sort, cheap drugstore vaseline most likely, glossy but compact.

Now that he realizes it, if he pays closer attention Yuuri’s lips do look smoother this way, much so that Lilia’s do even with her red lipstick applied or without it. And yet creases imprint themselves in his lower lip whenever his teeth dig into it, and keeps getting rougher from the ministrations of his tongue, tip chasing away particles each crumb of bread had left on his mouth. They look a little pinker, though not as bright as the shade that blooms on Yuuri’s cheekbones. It forms a sharp contrast with his eyes, the brown irises matching the merlot wine he drinks whilst bathed in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the dining room windows. It is hard to miss, especially when Yuuri has spent most of lunch, carefully watching “Victor” as if he expected him to jump from his seat and onto him.

His attention is briefly taken away from his brother during the course of their meal. Yuuri’s nose wrinkles, undoubtedly taking in the scent of vinegar, egg white and cold ham that permeates the kholodets. Yuuri doesn’t come across, at first sight, as the kind to play around with his food but for all of his efforts, his dish doesn’t last long. He frowns as the kholodets slumps onto itself, its structure now partially demolished. The construction sinks under the combined efforts of cutlery causing the jelly to explode into a partially consistent broth, and orange to spill onto the plate from its white, embryonic cocoon.

It causes a light shiver in his composure, the taste of acidic tomatoes that melt on his tongue and the cold cuts that remain partially rigid under the teeth but still thaw inside his mouth. He makes a small sound as he swallows, a hum that stretches far longer than any other noise of contemplation or appreciation he has ever heard, though not unpleasant. Both Lilia and Yakov catch it, and exchange a fond smile that he hadn’t thought possible in a while.

There is little left on Yuuri’s plate afterwards, but enough still for Lilia to stop him beforehand.

“We don’t throw any food in this house, Mr. Katsuki. This is a country-house; it means we are in constant battle with the outside elements: weather, plants, vermin, especially vermin, Mr Katsuki.” She hisses the words with her back turned to him while she fishes for a spare plastic container in a buffet. “And so we take certain measures against them. Mr. Feltsman will explain the rest of your duties from here.”

Yakov diligently takes the open tupperware for her and gestures in Yuuri’s general direction. “Food goes in here.” Yuuri nods, emptying the rest of his plate in the box. “Thank you,” Yakov says, closing it and placing it in the separate freezer. It isn’t much, given how the three of them have left little on their plates, but there are other leftovers in the fridge too. Enough to sustain him. “Now, I’ll show you the traps.”

 

He joins her in the master bedroom, watching from their window pane as Yakov leads Yuuri deeper into the garden, plastic bag in hand for the rats to spend the rest of their lives. Yuuri takes hold of his arm wordlessly, letting himself be guided out the front door to the large gardens on the estate. Lilia tenses though the touch is inconspicuous enough from a distance. One could, after all, easily get lost on the estate if curiosity were to lead them astray. His own hand finds its place in the crook of her elbow, mutely and gently palpating the muscles until they loosen. Makkachin is at their heels, trailing after them and frolicking in the high grass and flowers, watching as one half of his masters pats Yuuri’s arm encouragingly. He points up to the windows, saying something to him that neither of them quite catches from their position, but can easily guess. The result of years of practice.

“Have you made a decision yet?” Lilia asks as subtly as she can, her lips moving in so delicate a way that she could rival the most expert pantomime. His form remains hidden in the shadows of curtains, but they cannot afford to take risks. He crosses gazes with her as Yakov leads the Japanese man back, then reaches out to embrace him. Yuuri hesitantly corresponds him, looking very much uneasy in Yakov’s arms.

Worms slither at Yuuri’s feet when he treads on the ground, boots softly sinking but never giving under the slope of water, mud and grass. The cool morning air caresses Yuuri’s cheeks, bringing a bright flush to his cheeks that could rival the rosebushes on the garden and the bouquets strewn all across the house. They must be equally fresh to the touch and just as soft as rose petals. Makkachin barks next to him, catching his attention long enough to be scratched behind the ears and lap at his hand all the way back home. As if nature were embracing, welcoming Yuuri to the house.

Then nods.

 

After supper, Yuuri stands awkwardly in the doorway as Lilia and Yakov kneel at the bed, Sasha lying once again under the duvet, fully dressed in pajamas of the best brand and fabric. Only the best for the golden child of the house. Lilia leads, her prayers coming in soft breaths.

“ _Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,_

_Look upon a little child;_

_Pity my simplicity,_

_Suffer me come to Thee._

_God bless Lilia,_

_God bless Yakov._

_God bless Yuuri._

(Yakov looks as troubled at the new inclusion as Yuuri, staring at Lilia who remains oblivious to their reaction as she finishes.)

_God bless me._

_Amen.”_

Yuuri doesn't protest when the spouses ask for some time alone with Victor, promptly shutting the door in his face. The moment he is fully out of the room, both spouses turn to the wall standing directly behind the bed frame.

“Very well then,” Yakov whispers. “What did you think?”

Lilia inhales softly. “He is good,” she admits with somewhat great reluctance, “very good, and obedient. I daresay he would please Victor quite well.”

“I think so, too,” Yakov huffs, before turning to the wall, faking passivity. “What is your final decision?”

For a split second he almost forgets that he isn’t truly face-to-face with the two of them, accustomed as he is to having seen them directly for the past month, and aware of their gazes piercing through him. In spite of the microscopic holes that allow only him to see perfectly, they stay mysteries to each other.

“I want him,” he declares with finality, imperceptibly nodding.

 

* * *

 

He should be sleeping. As hard as old habits die, he can’t bring himself to. His bed sheets are stifling, and the mattress he keeps at the back of the laundry room is not warm enough to keep him captive. It is only – only? – three in the morning, but there is a noise at the back of his head that rings insistently. A furtive alarm that screeches in his ear, and won’t let go.

It is three in the morning, and yet Yuuri does not sleep. Restless as him, his feet paces back and forth in the room in an inconsistent pattern. The thuds of soft fabric on the floor tells him that he’s only just unpacking and organizing things in the closet – his closet – and drawers. But this doesn’t change the fact that he is not alone.

The handset of the telephone in the halls easily finds its way into his hand. He manages to constrain his breathing without blinking, unable to be heard through the mouthpiece and cable.

“So...” a foreign phone drawls in his ear, contemplative and yet with a playful edge that sets him off. “You're basically telling me that you're gonna take care of Annabelle?”

“Shh!” Yuuri chuckles lowly in the mouthpiece of the phone, yet another sound that he hadn’t had the luxury to hear yet. It chimes like the bells atop the towers of a church, though it lacks their common garishness.

“What? It's true! Don't tell me you don't find it weird! Just because you grew up in Japan doesn't make you immune to this kind of stuff!”

“I know I know, but I'm not going to be watching over the Antichrist either. It's just for a month anyway, nothing could possibly happen in a month.”

The other man sighs. “I still think you should have stayed in Detroit.”

Yuuri corresponds his weary tone. “I hate to say this, but I agree. I only just found where to plug in my computer and there's no signal.”

“Get out,” the speaker moans dramatically over the phone. “No reception and no wifi? How do you survive?”

Yuuri laughs, his voice making something without name dissipate. “I have no idea, Phichit. I mean at least they have electricity and running water. Could be worse.” He groans. “I don’t know, the whole thing is just… weird. Huge house in the middle of nowhere, no neighbours, no windows; they don’t even have cell service or wifi. I feel like I’m taking advantage of them.”

“No,” the other person – Phichit? – you’re just… being paid to babysit. Yuuri you know you needed to get away. This is perfect for you.” Get away from what, exactly?

Yuuri sighs. “You should have seen the way they talked to it. It made me so sad, and the doll just looks… so creepy but real.”

Phichit huffs, wherever he is. “Yeah yeah, I know it’s creepy but it’s only for a few months tops, right? Besides, anyone would kill to be under Lilia Baranovskaya’s wing. You can handle it.”

“Phichit, if this were just two weeks...”

“Yuuri,” Phichit cuts with finality, “you need the money. You can start over after this, forget what happened.” A brief silence settles before he breaks it again.“Yuri's been calling again, you know,” Phichit mutters into the phone, suddenly sounding much more sober.

Yuri? Where had he heard that before? He takes note of the difference in pronouncing both their names which, no matter how similar they are, remain quite distinctive. Lilia had mentioned one Russian named Yuri, who had been coaching Yuuri prior to him retiring.

Yuuri takes longer to reply that he had thought. The unease he had sensed that morning during his conversation with Chris has suddenly made a reappearance that perks his interest. “What is he saying?”

“He asked where you were. I told him to go fuck himself.”

Yuuri exhales, betraying a sob that had been building inside his throat – or was it a cough, rather? He lets out a small laugh. “That's my boy. Thank you Phichit.”

“Don't thank me Yuuri, you know I'd do anything for you.”

Following that, he learns a little more about him from his conversation. Details that come sporadically, implicit but exhaustive enough to be understood within a context. Among the information he amasses is the knowledge that Phichit is Yuuri’s best friend – his only best friend, if he is to believe the startling familiarity by which they both go –, that they live together and that Yuuri’s room is still open and left as it was when Yuuri left it. Whoever this Phichit is, he makes it clear that Yuuri will always be welcome back.

Poor boy, he thinks. If only he knew…

The better part of half an hour goes by before they decide to bid each other goodbye. Silence reigns when the two hang up, the beeping echoing in his ear like an owl cooing mechanically into the earpiece. It pulses to life, rumbling at a pace and intensity that rings through his head and won’t leave him alone, dominating the space within his skull and reverberating in its depths.

Before he knows it, his fingers dance on the numbers, and the dialling tone quickly makes way for a crackling akin to matches rekindling a spark.

“Yes Phichit?” Yuuri’s voice mumbles into the earpiece, venturing onto sleepiness.

He exhales sharply upon hearing him, then realizes his mistake and pushes the headset away, leaving it to dangle from the cord.

“Hello?” Yuuri asks again at the end of the line, hesitant.

That is all he needs before hanging up briskly.

 

* * *

 

Soon, it is time for them to part ways and make their goodbyes. Lilia and Yakov leave in the morning for what Yakov announces to be a "short vacation", conceding that they had wanted to go for some time now but hadn't had the time what with Victor – Sasha – missing a caretaker in their absence. Yuuri reassures him with an understanding nod, cradling Victor in his arms. He presses uncomfortably against his ribcage when Yakov hugs him again as he had the previous day, then presses a kiss atop Victor's silver crown of hair. Lilia's smile is a little puckered when she approaches Yuuri to say goodbye. Yuuri is taken aback when instead of shaking his hand, she wraps her arms around him, bony limbs pulling him forward until he can smell her perfume from inside her neon-bright coat. He can smell it from where he stands, remembering the way he had smelt it in the early hours of the morning, when she had come to bid him farewell: flowery, not very modern, but alltogether her signature scent. Yakov shakes Yuuri’s hand briefly, reminding him that the list of chores is on the table in the living room.

His eyes prickle as he watches them go for what feels like the last time, their centre watering as if burnt back or probed by a sharp needle. He blinks, chasing away the itch that dissipates as soon as it came. Water seeps from the corners, trickles down his face in a slow, steady flow that trails down his cheeks and pearls on his upper lip. His tongue tentatively breaches his lips to taste the foreign water. Salt explodes on the tip, a short-lived tingle that clings to skin and starts to dry and bite at his cheeks.

Yuuri distractedly pats Makkachin's head as they drive off into the distance. Sasha meets his gaze above Yuuri’s shoulder, daring as always.

“Looks like it's just you and me,” Yuuri rasps absent-mindedly.

Oh, Yuuri, he muses. If only you knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: "Porphyria and his lover".
> 
> ************************************************************
> 
> "Hello darkness my old friend", I hum to myself as I open the doc I've left to rot for 5 months, putting curlers in my hair and coughing my lungs out in suffocating pre-summer.
> 
> Surprise bitches, I am alive. Thought you'd seen the last of me.  
> I know, I know. It's been years and this chapter is p lackluster compared to some of my anterior stuff... But my self-imposed hiatus has let to a few decisions concerning the development of this story:  
> \- the number of chapters has been reduced from 10 to 8, so there are 3 chapters remaining. I do this mainly so all chapters focused on the main events rather than have a lot of filler chapters that would span a month or so. As a consequence writing them will take more time, but it will make for slightly longer chapters and more developed characterization.  
> \- Happy Endings will be only comprised of two endings instead of three: the "sad ending" will follow the "dream ending" already published. The "happy ending" will be featured in the last chapter of Erlking, either directly in chapter 8 or as an epilogue. I have a lot of surprises waiting for you on that last chapter ;)
> 
> Kudos, comments and bookmarks are always appreciated :)  
> I'm @allollipoppins on tumblr & @AriL10N355 on twitter. Hmu!


	6. Porphyria and his lover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “One of Robert Browning’s most controversial poems, “Porphyria’s lover” scandalized its readers with the explicit depiction of the eponymous character murdering his mistress by wrapping her hair around her throat, then embracing her corpse. While most interpretations see in the verses the depiction of a madman, many argue that the Lover's final act is done out of love for the sickly Porphyria, thus ending her suffering.”
> 
> TWs: implied past murder, tampering with drugs, **very explicit cannibalism** and sociopathic behaviour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Aesthetic for Porphyria and his lover](http://allollipoppins.tumblr.com/post/181599015642/the-erlking-allollipoppins-yuri-on-ice)

Silence meets him where he is, but it is an entirely different breed of quietness. The kind written in stilted breaths and paused steps, the thrum of hearts and lungs muffled and locked under the weight of ribcages. Like tuning a radio station to the lowest frequency, until only the buzz, the crackling of imperceptible voices through microphones remained; everything stands still, and yet sits heavy with meaning.

He finds himself staring at a back draped in black, standing in the entrance of the room with panelled doors on either side of him and a glow of light on his nape. Hesitation writes itself all too clearly on Yuuri's face. The skin around his temples tightens when he squints down at the doll still in his arms, the fingers of his hand clench and unclench mechanically, bones of each knuckle cracking softly. Yuuri’s gaze doesn’t waver away from Sasha’s, the two of them staring each other down, none relenting. Yuuri doesn’t appear befuddled or even frightened by the little man sitting in the armchair, imperial-like; if anything he looks almost… contemplative. Like he is not quite sure what to make of him.

Most never really do. Usually there isn’t much left for him to be. Once Sasha has been paraded around, passed from hand to hand for examination, no one pays him much mind any more, especially the ones who were to take care of him. To hell with Lilia and Yakov’s carefully-laid protocol; the world ends at the gates of the estate for all visitors care. It isn’t something he hasn’t witnessed before, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Yuuri were the same. People tended to be reckless when they thought themselves out of harm’s way. And yet, they couldn’t be more wrong.

Lilia and Yakov may be gone, but he remains. Enraptured by the spectacle each newcomer gives, unaware of his presence, as they alternately forgot about Sasha, ignored him, locked him up in a cabinet and went by everyday minding their own business. Falling under a pretence of normalcy, and ultimately never seeing it coming when he should strike. He had souvenirs of these fatal encounters, shreds of clothing, locks of hair hanging on fishing lures, lockets and the occasional earring.

Tracking one of the girls through them had been child's play. Branches had torn at the pale skin of her tights when she had tried to flee, strips of fabric and loose hair clinging to rose thorns and bushes, leaving behind red droplets on the very roots and rocks that had dug into the soles of her feet. But she hadn’t had the time to run. The chase had been entertaining while it lasted, and still it left him a tad disappointed. Even at a slow pace he had caught her so very easily.

Yuuri, he had been told, ran fast. Would he give him a good chase, if they ever came to this? He was an athlete after all, though it had been a while since he last trained, and from what he had heard he wouldn’t disappoint.

And he would be there, waiting for him at the turn the moment Yuuri disobeyed the rules. It was only a matter of time.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri smooths imperceptible wrinkles off the pants of Sasha’s suit, his fingers brushing the skin peeking from underneath the cuffs as if looking for the inexistent duvet that covers a child’s arms, or looking for tumours or malformations. Anything that might prove that he is a being of flesh and bone.

Yuuri’s hand move back to his body once he deems his job to be finished, resting on his hips. A low growl suddenly breaks the silence and no sooner does it make itself heard that a slight flush rises on Yuuri’s cheeks, and one of his hands comes to rest on his stomach, as if to smother the noise.

A low, whistling gust of air escapes him, dissipating under his mask, but warmth settles in his stomach at the sight, contracting the organ. Close to a laugh, only not loud enough to be heard. Yuuri’s fingers dig into the fabric of his shirt, pressing insistently into the bulging flesh. It isn’t too protuberant, but it is definitely more flesh than he has seen on a dancer.

A nervous laugh escapes Yuuri's lips, progressing from a soft sigh into something a little louder, bordering on hysteric, to the point where he has to cover his mouth with a hand to muffle it. Once his breathing comes to a slower, normal pace he exhales shakily, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

Yuuri clears his throat. “Well since it's officially our first day together I'll make you my favorite dish, alright? You must be hungry.”

No voice replies, but Yuuri doesn’t appear to be the least bothered by the lack of response, like it was the most natural thing in the world that his words should be answered by muteness; perhaps his charge had matters of his own on his mind, preoccupied by things only children could give meaning to. He slides one arm underneath Sasha’s knees, the other coming behind his back and hoisting him up until his chest is almost pressed to Yuuri’s. His arm snakes around Sasha’s slim waist, his hand reaching for the doll’s own, fingers entwined together. Yuuri is so pale he almost fails to discern where his fingers begin, and where Sasha’s own hand ends, doted as they both were of a pale complexion. Their embrace brings no flush on any of their cheeks.

“There we go,” Yuuri says, looking up to meet Sasha’s eyes.

Yuuri sighs then, and buries his nose in Sasha’s hair while he takes a sharp breath, his lips pressing together in a thin line, eyelids shutting close. Sasha’s arms dangle and fall limply at his sides when he lowers to Yuuri’s level, chest to chest, nose buried in the juncture where Yuuri’s neck meets his collarbone. Yuuri’s eyes, when they open again, are downcast and obscured by his fringe, but the blurry brown that seeps through tears is enough to tell that they are full of profound sadness.

“Come on then,” Yuuri whispers in Sasha’s hair, so low he narrowly misses it, “we've gotta make lunch.”

 

He makes himself at home in the kitchen astoundingly fast, pulling ingredients here and there out of the fridge and cupboards and disposing them disparately on the kitchen and counter. Meat, rice, spices from the rack, vegetables. The younger man keeps his head bowed, his mind completely focused on the task at hand – cooking, from what he has gathered. Never once looking Sasha's way.

People never know to stay still when they are in the same room as Sasha, or any other member of the family. The women, particularly, seemed unable to be composed. Their eyes always follow the same movement, moving frantically in their sockets, darting their gaze back and forth from door to door, like a pendulum or a metronome. And yet Yuuri is not even ignoring his charge. It is simply as if Sasha were not there.

The kitchen fills with the hustle and bustle of activity. Sadly, he cannot come closer to see what has Yuuri so concentrated. He contents himself with gauging the meat, from afar.

Yuuri manipulates the meat with ease while the rice cooks in its pan. The cutlets, plump and rosy in his hand, are pounded with the foot of a glass, then seasoned with various spices and coats it in flour. The cutting board below the meat progressively dampens. The fine water that seeps onto wood looks murky, as drained water tends to be, but it leaves a darker imprint than average meat, richer. Thought Yuuri has patted down each cut, single rose-coloured droplets trickle down his hands and wrists, disappearing under the cuffs of his sweater and melting against his pale skin.

Makkachin perks up, moving from her position on the floor to come nose Yuuri’s wrist, giving it a small lick. Yuuri grins down at her, laughing softly. He picks a stray piece of meat left on the side, bringing it closer to Makkachin’s face. She smells it, then gratefully eats it out of his palm. He gives her one last pat on the head before washing his hands and moving on to cutting vegetables.

As the preparation of the meal soon comes to an end, he finds that Yuuri's body is made of the strangest mechanics. Both Makkachin and Sasha watch, enraptured, from their respective seats as Yuuri moves from corner to corner of the room. His shadow precedes him when he walks, the figure made larger by the stray beams of sunlight hitting the window pane from behind the lace curtains. It prowls, crawls on the lime painted walls and the porcelain tiles with precision and measured steps. He is but a hand, a pair of feet with visible ankles penetrating his field of vision. A soft hum dances on his lips, turning slightly louder as time goes by. He makes his way to the fridge with a little more spring in his steps, toes slipping on the kitchen tiles and his hips and shoulders rolling in a figure-eight movement. Lyrics dance on his lips, first barely above a whisper then rising while he beats yolks and dips the cutlets in bowls of eggs and breadcrumbs.

Yuuri makes an appreciative noise when the meat sears in the pan upon touching the oil, letting the pork fry slowly while he removes the rice from the gas cook-top and replaces it with a skillet for the onions and the rest of the broth. The kitchen gradually fills with a hearty smell of vegetables and meat as the recipe comes to completion. He can almost taste the food on his palate from the scent permeating the kitchen alone, a mixture of salty meat, egg and soup.

Yuuri gathers forks and knives, placing them on Sasha’s right with a napkin, and does the same with his own. Twin bowls are set on the table and Yuuri starts arranging their lunch, golden brown cutlets coming to rest atop steamed rice and glistening onion rings and vegetables, broth colouring the moist crust a lovely brown colour. Yuuri goes as far as to serve Sasha first, then takes care of his own dish. While the bowls are identical in all ways, he could swear Yuuri’s is partly smaller than Sasha’s own. A smaller bowl is even put aside on the floor for Makkachin, who promptly hurries to eat her fill.

“Itadakimasu,” Yuuri says, bowing slightly with his hands joined before digging in. He moans openly as the tender meat comes in contact with his tongue, eyes fluttering shut.

The warmth in his stomach turns suffocating, like acid burning within his body, making him all the more aware of the last time he actually ate. It spreads up to his throat and lungs, close to choking him. His last meal, the leftover kholodets he had smuggled from the fridge in the early morning, feel so distant.

He is so aware of his own hunger, of the hollow pit spreading within his entrails that he almost misses it when Yuuri leaves the table, turning to the sink to wash his bowl and cutlery. Cling film has been wrapped on Sasha's bowl, and the remains of food are stored inside the fridge.

A solitary cup of tea catches his attention, steeping on the kitchen table, its surface a light green that grows darker by the second. Next to it a white plastic bottle rests, a black and orange label plastered on the front. But he doesn't have the time to read it before Yuuri seizes it, uncaps the bottle and pours its contents onto a tablespoon. A thick, orange syrup flows from the end, narrowly keeping from overflowing on the spoon. Yuuri brings it to his mouth, his lips part to let the spoon in, and close onto it. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows the medicament, his head slightly thrown back. The corners of his mouth pinch into a grimace as the aftertaste of the medicine washes through him, his nose wrinkling. He chases it away with a few sips of his tea, and sets down his cup when he reaches for Sasha and hoists him up, taking the mug in his free hand. Makkachin trots after him, following the two of them in the hall.

A moment passes before he is certain that Yuuri won’t be coming back inside the kitchen, having gone up the stairs. He slots his body through an opening in the wall, hidden out of sight, and slips through it and inside the kitchen. His eyes find the vial still on the table, and his fingers reach out to it, brushing the cap and bringing it closer until it is only a few inches away from his face. The sight of the vial resting on the table is one that is eerily familiar. The sides of the bottle are obscured by the thick, opaque and milky-white plastic, the label wrapped around the plastic keeping his eyes from gazing at its contents.

A few moments of reflexion allow him to recognize the label on the bottle all too easily, especially after all these years. Its sight conjures similar vials, an entire array uniformly lined up atop the table of a vanity. Lilia had a bottle quite like this one, in shape and size. It always came with the mail or, given certain occasions, she went to fetch it herself down town. The bright red GlaxoSmithKline triangle that adorns the label, overly prominent from where it rests against the clear white background isn’t unfamiliar, as is the name of the product. PAXIL Paroxetine Oral Suspension 10 mg, he reads. Written in bold black letters, the title takes up the better part of the tag, with the dose transcribed in a much smaller font, to the point it is almost imperceptible to the naked eye. As if the makers hadn't wished to divulge such an important piece of information, or hadn't bothered in helping the person who would most be in need of this medicine. 10 mg, he quickly calculated, could be a rather negligible amount, depending on what it consisted of. But 10 milligrams is rather uncommon for a 20-year old, he thinks. The label he remembered had shown twice that number. His mother had been prescribed 20 mg before the time of her death, the average dose for adults. But it wasn’t meant to be consumed beyond 50 mg, and Anastasia Nikiforov had had several bottles of the medicine, going as far as stocking them and finishing bottles every two days. It had been a miracle that she should have lasted so long without overdosing on them. Somehow, her own treacherous body hadn't allowed it, not giving her the luxury of an easy passing at the hands of chemicals.

He frowns. It could mean many things. Perhaps it was only Yuuri's first time taking this kind of medicine, and he would progressively move on to take higher doses or reduce it. His condition, whatever it might have been, could also require him to stick to a measured consumption. Or, even more, Yuuri could be intentionally using smaller amounts to become independent from treatment, live his life without relying on drugs. He knows all too well the damages such antidepressants can cause to the human psyche. At their best, antidepressants like Paroxetine or Seroxat could be migraine preventives. At their worst, in the beginning or during treatment, if not after limiting it, they could also be very powerful drugs, strong enough that their effects could generate suicidal and sociopathic tendencies in the ones undergoing treatment. It was customary to increase the dose in patients, rather than lower it, and yet Yuuri had come in the possession of a weaker formula.

Humans, he muses, are so fragile. It momentarily crosses his mind that perhaps, it is the only reason why Yuuri treats Sasha so well, the fool. Living in a constant delusional state that provided him with false comfort. It sparks something in him as he twirls the bottle in his hand, surveying its contents. It is half-empty already, and the shadow of an indecipherable number had been drawn over the cap.

He hums, considering. As soon as the after-effects would fade, Yuuri wouldn’t be so calm. He would all but forget Sasha’s existence, stop behaving as if he were to take care of him. No matter how many bottles he had of the stuff, it would only last so long before he would run out of subsidence. Going off antidepressants, even gradually, was never an easy feat, but finding the dose altered so suddenly could make for the most... interesting effects. And then, and only then, the real challenge could begin. Perhaps, he could use a little push.

And he’s all too happy to help.

The bottle uncaps easily in his grasp, and he lifts it to the tap while his free hand moves to open it. A great flow of water streams, clear and pouring steadily inside the recipient. As it fills, the contents of the bottle burst from the cap and pours into the sink, the thick substance turning finer, almost bile-coloured. Orange streaks drip on the sides, washed away by the leaking mixture. The sink swallows whole the flood of amber liquid.

 

* * *

 

Few people actually venture into the library, and if they do it is usually for the view on the gardens and the direct access to the balcony that they come through the room, not so much for its contents. Yet this is where he finds Yuuri when he finds him, facing one section of their shelves dedicated to classics. His fingers brush spine after spine of titles he probably doesn’t recognize, heavy literature, manuals on education, philosophers, children’s books, everything is compiled. Yuuri’s hand stops along a title which stands out on its row, beginning the section of books that are not in Russian. Lips pursed, he slowly extricates the volume from the shelf, bringing the spine closer to himself and huffing when it finally comes out free.

He recognizes The Arabian Nights, with its thick spine, a blue-and-black hardback perfectly bound which he had never dared to open, or even thought of. No traces of folding tarnish the polished surface of the first volume of the collection.

“Have you ever read that one, Victor?” Yuuri asks, holding the book in the air for Sasha to see, presumably, cover facing away from him but still turning his head in an attempt to look at him. Without expecting much of an answer he presses the book to his chest, palm cradling the heavy tome and bringing the cover forward, brushes specks of dust off the binding and top edge. Sasha doesn't respond, simply gazing at him from his seat.

"What do you think?" he muses as he gazes at the cover. A man and woman, their skin golden and wrapped in colourful garments, sit facing each other, seemingly deep in conversation. Above them, the night sky and stars dance, crescent moon bright over the title embossed in silver. No answer still. "There's not much to do today, we could read a bit before dinner."

Yuuri settles them in the loveseat nestled in the corner, facing a cold fireplace. He adjusts the cushions, letting his long limbs spread over the plush material as Makkachin comes to lay at his feet. He flips through the page until he finds the beginning. Sasha rests on Yuuri’s lap, basking in his warmth from where he lays nestled against the man’s chest, cheek rubbing against the soft fabric of his shirt.Yuuri’s arm wraps tighter around Sasha’s waist, his free hand adjusting his glasses on his nose and then nestling the book on his pushed knees.

“It is written in the chronicles of the Sassanian monarchs that there once lived an illustrious prince, beloved by his own subjects for his wisdom and his prudence, and feared by his enemies for his courage and for the hardy and well-disciplined army of which he was the leader. This prince had two sons, the elder called Schah-riar, and the younger Schah-zenan, both equally good and deserving of praise.”

His tone conjures an endless desert of ashen grey sand, bathed by the moonlight and then set on fire upon daybreak, coloured in warm hues. From above the sand a storm of blue, pink and gold surfaces, dancing with the wind with frenetic speed, enchanted by instruments he can't put a name on, symphonies that belonged in a sarabande long lost in the depth of ancient memories, so vivid and yet so blurry he wonders if they ever existed in the first place. And then the sunset falls upon them again, like a curtain call. Dusk settles in, and night falls before he can even perceive that the light has gradually dimmed in the master bedroom of the king's palace, swept away by darkness. Shadows dance behind the curtains, most of them tree leaves conducted by the wind and nocturnal animals escaping the pouring rain that collides with the window pane.

It is the silence that catches him off guard. Yuuri's voice no longer echoes through the library, and the silence has stretched far too long for him to gather his breath, or take a sip of cooled tea. This silence eclipses everything, save for the sweetest of sighs. Only then does he realize that he had lost himself in the words, allowed himself to be momentarily distracted by the lull of Yuuri's voice softly reading inside the room.

They had gone as far as reaching Aladdin’s story. Yuuri had practically run himself hoarse all for the sake of reading Sasha a story. And while he disguised it as a cough, Victor knows how rough it can be to be sick in such a cold weather. He’d never gotten a bedside story, nevermind a lullaby as a child. Why didn’t he stop even though he knew he was starting be worn out and his throat was hurting?

Yuuri reluctantly gets up from the couch, groaning as the joints in his knees pop upon sitting up. He reaches for Sasha, who barely stirs in Yuuri’s arms, and if his eyes weren’t open so widely, he could have sworn that he had fallen asleep.

Yuuri puts a kettle to boil while setting the table in the dining room, placing clean silverware on each side of Sasha, and taking care to seat him opposite his own chair at the top of the table. He yawns against his palm, the long day starting to weigh on him, and groans while stretching his limbs a little. It is still very early, only a little past 7 p.m., but he doubts that Yuuri would go against Lilia’s rules and serve dinner much later, which would consequently mean putting Sasha to bed at more tardive hours.

It is hard to tell what it is exactly that is at play, the weather or the darkness that imbues the room in spite of the chandeliers and lamps lighting every corner of the room, or perhaps something else, but whatever it is, it is starting to affect Yuuri. His cheeks are slightly flushed, his movements sluggish to the point his cutlery screeches on the rim of his bowl, narrowly missing its contents. His state of drowsiness that doesn't result of a suffocating heat, but that felt to him rather like that of a soul gradually falling into the clutches of sleep. His distraction is such that on one instance, he accidentally gets some of the dust that had collected on the porcelain teapot on Sasha. The little one barely flinches or sneezes through it.

"Ah, sorry Victor!" Yuuri blurts out, brushing out the remains as best as he could, only managing to spread the markings on the material. Yuuri winces. "Sorry," he apologizes again, ultimately resorting for holding up the young boy instead. "I'll wash that for you during the week."

He takes a quick glance at the windows. A storm is brewing outside, the earlier rain having morphed into something far greater and powerful that looms over the house. Tree branches rustle with the wind and water droplets pelt on glass. Mist rolls in from the outside, condensing on the long, graceful window. Yuuri comes to stand before them, contemplating the thunderous weather that brews outside, with Sasha leaning against his shoulder and Makkachin pawing invisible clouds of dust at his feet. He is so close to the glass that his breath condenses on the pane, the surface so cold still that the exhales that escape his lips and his nostrils form little puffs of breath that hover in the air before disintegrating. His face almost plants into the mirror, nose tip almost glued to his reflection, the fingers lightly touching its surface. Yuuri's nose almost brushes the recently polished material, and he is so close now that it reflects him, sending back a mirror image tarnished only by the droplets of rain falling on the other side. His reflection spans two of the panes, crudely cut through the middle by the wooden frame of the windows, but its split images remain laced together, entwined, almost forming a kaleidoscopic vision that dwindles with the light and the pitter patter of the water trickling down the glass.

A minutes stretches before a yawn forces its way past his lips, which Yuuri covers all too late with the back of his hand. As if startled out of the moment, and undoubtedly sensing his fatigue, Makkachin rubs his head against Yuuri’s knee, and leans back to let Yuuri run his fingers through his brown curls. Yuuri’s other cards through Sasha’s blonde fringe in a sweeping, absent-minded manner, the strokes numbed slightly by his tiredness. Still Yuuri’s eyes don’t leave his reflection; as though he were trying to find himself, somehow believing he could find another than him in his stilted image, with only his eyes for a guide; another person whose appearance, in all ways similar, happened to be in the same room, come to haunt the space in soul as Yuuri did corporally.

Sasha's head sinks like stone against his shoulder. Only then does Yuuri seem to recall his surroundings. He hugs the smaller body tighter against his frame, while his steps guide him to the little boy's room.

"Time for bed, Vicchan," he coos with a pat on his shoulder. He sits him down on the mattress, back supported by twin pillows. Yuuri fumbles a little with the intricate buttons of his shirt, resin circles slipping from his grasp. But his lessons with Lilia, and his own foreknowledge of children’s clothing haven’t been in vain, it seems. Soon enough the buttons magically slot themselves in place in their designated gussets. Pants he makes a quicker work of, slipping and pulling after he removes Sasha's baby-sized socks and assorted leather shoes. His weights sinks a little into the bed, having to pull himself on his knees to tuck Sasha in under the covers, retracting his weight once the boy’s lower half is fully covered, then pulling the duvet up to Sasha’s chin. Yuuri smooths out his fringe with a slow sweep of his fingers, combing back the silver hair away from his eyes and tucking it behind his left ear. Sasha's blue irises catch the lamp light from the bedside table. The corners of a smile tease at Yuuri’s lip.

"Goodnight Victor," Yuuri whispers, his fingers drawing back from the blond fringe and tracing a line down to the plump cheekbone, caressing it lightly.

He leans over him, slowly angling his body over the very place where the light touches Sasha’s cheek, until he suddenly stops.

His hand retracts just as suddenly.

It takes all of him to keep from hissing at the loss of contact. He is almost surprised to find no visible mark on Sasha’s cheek when Yuuri’s part from it, certain as he was that this touch alone would have burnt a mark on his cheek.

Yuuri’s acute awareness of Sasha, he comes to conclude, is slowly, surely, starting to fade. As if he were seeing him for the first time, for what he really was. Just a doll, a mere imitation of a human being, devoid of their external flaws, of any of the affliction that governed those of flesh and bone made. Suddenly, without Lilia there to guide him, Yuuri is at loss for words, hands hovering barely an inch above the pillow upon which Sasha’s fair head rests.

Yuuri withdraws,  maintaining weak eye contact with Sasha .

“I'll... see you tomorrow,” Yuuri begins, though all pretence of confidence is wavering, very much audible in the way his voice almost breaks.

“You have a good night,” he repeats, mostly to himself, finally tearing his gaze from Sasha’s and letting it fall to the ground. His palm blindly reach for the light, finding the cord and switch. White rays converge on Sasha's face when he turns off the light, obscuring his cheeks with blue hues. The door closes at Yuuri's back with a soft click and huff.

No sooner does Yuuri exit the room, not once looking back, that he rushes inside his own, and undressed at the speed of lightning. Now down to only his boxers, a shirt and socks, he tumbles into bed, nose buried into the pillow. Yuuri pulls up the cover on his body, lies down on his back; the quilt does not cover him entirely. His head is uncovered, as well as his wrists that tug the cloth back onto him, right under the neck.

It doesn’t take long before he falls asleep, the rain lulling him to the realm of dreams.

 

The room stands still, as the world ends in the alcove of fabric draped between the windows and the bed. A cluster of inanimate objects surround it, coming to a close around these frontiers, circling them. He stays upright, the weight of his body not once swaying on the pads of his soles. For a split second, no life haunts the walls and what they cradle. Save for the presence breathing under the covers, the dog sleeping at its feet and the flower petals curling onto themselves as they wilt, inside the vase atop the vanity. There is no one. Hadn’t he been aware of Yuuri’s presence beforehand, he is almost certain that he wouldn’t have realized he was there in the first place. In spite of his keen eyesight, distinguishing the line between where Yuuri’s skin begins and the hem of his clothes ends is blurry at best in the dark. He could turn on the lights, but it would be too risky. And it would lack the element of surprise, the thrill of the discovery.

The figure lays on its side, one arm curled around the body and splayed in such a manner that it nearly covered his face. Difficult to tell if it was an instinctive motion, or unguarded, but any attempt at protecting himself was futile anyway. The bosom rising and falling at a steady pace is unmistakable, each bone of the ribcage spreading under the combined pressure of the heartbeats and lungs working at a slower pace. But it would be more appropriate to check, just in case. Better safe than sorry.

“Wake up Yuuri," his voice cracks from lack of use, coming slightly raspy and yet pitched high enough that it produces a strange chirp as it escapes his mouth. In spite of the proximity, Yuuri doesn't stir.

“Yuuri, wake up," he tries a second time, louder this time and at a normal debit. Yuuri still doesn't answer.

“I said WAKE UP," he raises his voice, just shy of yelling though the sound reaching his ears is closer to an animal’s whine. Even Makkachin, who had trailed behind him at some point, raises his head with an answering whine of his own. And yet Yuuri still shows no signs of being awake.

 

It is a distinctive state of mind, that of a man in his slumber. The face is laid bare in the act of sleep, devoid of any lie and any presumption, fragile – dare he say – as a newborn babe; frozen, save for the soft inhales and exhales that disturb Yuuri’s composure, the work of greater mechanics he doesn’t obey to. And openly displayed for his amusement. Everything combined conjures an invitation to touch, to feel and to exchange. Not with words, and not even necessarily with the need to press skin to textures of all kinds.

His knuckles glide onto a cheekbone, testing its resistance, the bone structure over which skin was stretched taut, but the flesh remained rosy with blood, plump.

There's just something about touching another human being. Nothing comes as close as this feeling, just as none carries a weight as heavily as one of their kind, palpable, within reach. Yuuri's skin, barely touching the tip of his knuckle, is incredibly smooth. He had imagined it callous, as most dancers’ became after strenuous work, and yet his skin is uncannily soft. It feels like gliding a fingertip over silk, or having a teddy bear’s fur brushing against his palms, but lacking the burns and sewing stitches and knots that were customary to toys.

There isn’t much left for him to do. At least for today. The next few days would be the ones that decided Yuuri’s fate, as it had been the case before. No one had ever come for Anya, or for any other girls. The poor little things had been left to fend for themselves during the whole stay. He couldn't feel any attachment to them. Maybe it was just the age. Perhaps they had all been too young for him, in spite of having been refined enough for Yakov to have his pick. Yakov, with what little fair head that remained on his head becoming a little greyer every day.

They had excited him but in the end they had been rather disappointing. They were always a let down. Too easily scared, too fickle, too this, too that. Each girl had called him names, then defiled his name – no, Sasha's name – by putting it in her mouth, thinking that calling him – calling them – out would conjure a spell, cast his ire onto another person. How naïve they had all been.

Anya, the first girl to have spawned the legacy, had known to expect the hands, vice-like around her neck, clasped on her throat until they formed a knot of flesh and bones that closed onto her with every second.

This time, he didn’t want Yuuri to be surprised, or at the very least he didn’t want it to be his predominant feeling. More than anything, he wanted Yuuri to know exactly what was coming to get him. He wanted Yuuri to fight him. To try and escape his clutches, tear at him with tooth and nail, to give him the run of his life in every possible way. How deep, he wonders, will we have to go? How far will we have to slip into his mind and dig to get under Yuuri’s skin?

There was a time for everything. For now, he would content himself with the spoils of Yuuri’s dinner.

Given  what  Yuuri  had served him ,  there isn’t much to do save for reheating the frozen goods. He doesn’t particularly look forward to it.  His feasts of sorts , no matter how much  he dug around them, were but scarce  remnants  of someone’s unconsummated meal .  Though the portions Yuuri had left out were considerable, it probably wouldn’t last long, and would only do little to quench the hunger that cluttered his stomach.  And though he doesn’t mind sharing with Makkachin, he isn’t particularly in the mood to share should Makkachin come at the ticking of the microwave.  Hopefully Yuuri wouldn’t wake up to follow him into the kitchen either.  Unless Yuuri happens to be a nocturnal animal, which he could clearly envision him to be,  somehow .

Yuuri's hands, he notes after opening the container had treated the meat with such great care, slicing through the white fat, the blade slipping between the fine tissue layer between muscle and bone. He hadn’t though that such a delectable taste could come out of an older kill. He hadn't been particularly careful with this one, disposing of her as one would dispose of any carcass, parting the flesh and separating the meat from the bones with his fingers after it had broiled, or using a knife, peeling her as if she were a grapefruit.

And yet through Yuuri’s ministrations the meat had been incredibly tender, almost light and soft to the touch like a caress on a lover's skin. The meat had this edge which somehow hadn’t been washed away during reheating, this richness that was so becoming to meat even when it was well-done. Lilia always wore gloves whenever she touched and prepared food, as if she didn’t want to get her hands dirty with someone else’s blood, in fear of becoming contaminated by their remains. It always left a plastic aftertaste that, while imperceptible to both herself and Makkachin, who received a consequent portion, never escaped him. Residues of talcum powder always clung to his plates. He finds none of the chalky aftertaste lingering on his tongue, long after meat and muscle have come together and he cannot tell anymore if the meat remains intact against his palate, or if he has swallowed without feeling the food sliding down his throat. Even the floor had none of its powdery consistency left.

The moving needles of the main clock echo from the hall, reaching as far as the kitchen. The cuckoo keeps him company throughout the night, while he eats.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri laughs sheepishly upon presenting Sasha with only two buttered toasts alongside his sweetened milk tea. "Sorry

buddy, but we're cutting down. You won't mind terribly, will you?"

The idea that he should complain about the food doesn’t come to mind. What Sasha is served is already more than what he is used to in general. The tea will probably go to waste, something which he can imagine Lilia grimacing over, given how disdainful she finds food waste of any kind. Yuuri is economical in his own breakfast, only having a few toasts set for himself, not buttered, and a cup of Earl Grey with no milk or sugar. Compared to the previous night’s accomplishments, this dish – for all that he could call it – is downright miserable. Yuuri finishes in no time and doesn’t waste minutes either in packing leftovers. From the way he is dressed, a simple t-shirt and leggings, he assumes that he is going to train in the ballet room upstairs. That would surely do him some good given his current state and body shape.

Instead of going to spy on Yuuri, he decides to rummage through his belongings. Without anyone physically inhabiting the room, it appear before him strangely minimal, suspended in time, a claustrophobic bric-à-brac. A thin layer of dust powders the surface of the vanity. Traces of it had been hastily brushed away, but a small cap remains, resistant to the effort at cleanliness the new inhabitant of the room had made.

The essence of being lingers still, asserted across the space of the sparsely furnished room and the walls almost stripped of colour; it betrays inner activity, objects possessive and possessed. There is a value to the things strewn here and there, an intricate meaning to each and every object to be found. The corners and inward pieces of a more complex puzzle, perhaps more dust and sand than cement. While a great mess – certainly relative, for Yuuri it might be a tendency – dominates the room, he notices that, somehow, there is an order to things, an order of importance understood only by the man behind it.

It all has a bit of Yuuri in it, inexplicably so. How strange, to have so much presence in absence, in unconsciousness. Unmeasurable but as tangible as a body within the boundaries of its muscles and bones, capable of luring someone with quietness but screams in silence. A devouring muteness that imbues the space with more questions than answers. As if a soul had been given not only flesh and blood and bones, but also a room of its own to haunt. His hands roam everywhere. He fingers shirts in the drawers, barely worn, so hardly used no string escapes the sewed hems and cuffs. The jeans, t-shirts and joggings, on the other hand, are close to giving, but are still resistant.

He finds other little treasures, namely pictures tucked under the inner cover of a book or in the pockets of Yuuri’s wallet. It isn't hard to tell where Yuuri got his looks from. Such a beast of a burden, genetics, passed from an idle person to another, like a disease or a chain that coiled around a neck and caused it to bend progressively, until it should snap and thus meet the fate of its primogenitors.

None of the people that inhabited the picture displayed the slightest sign of discomfort and unease from being front and centre amid the others. Still there was something in the man slotted between the two older women and the only other man on the photograph, pieces that didn’t quite match the allure Yuuri had inherited from his father, or the eyes and smile that were his mother’s. A microscopic frown the picture had somehow managed to capture, a tug of lips that, while pointed upwards, still somehow turned down, pinched eyebrows and sunken skin under each eye, a tinge darker than Yuuri’s own complexion. And yet nothing went amiss in this serene tableau, nothing showed that the its other inhabitants were in any way aware of Yuuri’s affliction.

There are also pages of a diary strewn here and there, tearing out of a notebook and pulling at the threads keeping them stitched to the spine. He is momentarily struck by their number, small stacks piling and threatening to spill out on his lap, and is even more-so surprised at how filled they are, stained with words written so deeply in ballpoint pen they have etched themselves into the other side of each page, leaving dents and imprints on the papers that follow. Even the cover of the notebook that contains them is covered in fine little lines, testament of a pen roughly handled and carving words into faux leather. If he were to close his eyes and trace back the marks with his fingers, like Braille, perhaps he would be able to decipher the same words he now finds strewn throughout what seems like chapters after chapters, only stopping on certain passages.

 

_"Three little words and I feel as if I've committed the worst crime in human history. Like I have borne witness to a death I myself am responsible for._

_Phichit says it's for the best. Mom, Dad and Mari only just found out and I think they still have to process everything. I think we all do."_

 

The words, he finds, don’t quite match with the person who had written them. Yuuri was a man of few words. A babbler perhaps, but that seemed mostly due to his anxious nature. Most of his nervousness transpired through his body, the giddy, jumpy steps he took. There were also times when he didn’t press too much either, as if every thought that wasn’t of use was repressed, or a pragmatic code set in a more complex system, only useful thoughts were kept and everything else was discarded. Even when he speaks, which is oddly enough much more often than he had ever witnessed in other people, there is a distinctive, tangible end to his words, a tilt in his voice suggesting that he is running out of things to say, and is only stalling the moment he would cease to speak and fall back into silence.

A few words later –

 

_"They say everything must come to an end, such is the nature of all things. Then why do I feel as if we were doomed for the start?_

_You should never meet your heroes. Because once you do they will crawl right inside your heart and make you their bitch. They will become a permanent fixture in your life and they will poison your blood and desecrate you and tear you to pieces until you are but a piece of your own jigsaw that will never come together."_

 

_"Now I see him everywhere I go, and yet I don't. I see ghosts of him, his features reflected in anyone whose path I cross. The small details, the more significant ones. I hate myself because everyday I lose sight of him, and it hurts more than I'd like to admit. You fall in love for a stranger, a face with whom you've barely exchanged more than ten nice words with in your life, and the next thing you know you're forgetting what he looks like, what his voice sounded like, the smallest tremors and the stronger, rougher notes._

_But you never really forget, do you?_

_I for one don't."_

 

_"I love him. I loved him. I hate him. I want to hate him._

_I still bear his marks on my skin. I still feel parts of me itching from where he touched me. I wish he would take that disgusting cigarette of his and burn them, shove the stub into my skin and watch me burn to cinders. If anything it would feel better than all the times he ever laid a hand on me."_

 

_"I used to admire him, you know._

_One moment he's screaming at me and the other he's holding me in his arms and telling me that I know he doesn't mean it that way. One moment I am soaring into the sky, floating right above ice, and the other I'm stumbling and he's looking the other way._

_There's no way we can share the same name, no way I can be student to one Yuri Plisetsky, living legend of figure skating and five-time gold medallist if all of his hard work amounts to my failure._

_There's not enough place on the ice for two Yuris._

_There can only be one Yuuri Katsuki. I hope he comes to the realization there can't be a Yuri Plisetsky without me."_

 

This new name strikes him. He had heard of a Yuri at one point, most certainly from Lilia though it is unlikely that she had been talking to him then. From what little he had gathered, he had been Yuuri’s figure skating coach but they had both fallen out a few months prior to Yuuri coming to the estate. Although his aunt hadn’t pressed further, the tone that had transpired then had been enough to tell that the relationship between coach and student had been far deeper than anyone else could have expected.

A few pages – days – pass by without a single word. His eyes eventually fall on a new entry several weeks later. The entry is dated to one day before Yuuri was to come to the house.

 

_"Yuri._

_Don't find me._

_Don't you dare."_

 

* * *

 

Yuuri distractedly nibbles at his nails while listening to the person speaking on the other side of the receiver. It looks like a habit of his, given that his nails aren’t very long. Most of them are of unequal length, and don’t have perfectly squared or rounded corners. His cuticles also stick out quite a lot, which wouldn’t be happening if he didn’t bite and stretch them so much. He himself remembers a time when he had bit his nails, though those moments had been born out of sheer boredom, gradually moving from the initial anticipation that had come at the beginning of the nannies’ recruitment. Before that it had been far worse. Mother had tied his fingers with elastics, spare hair ties, taped them, sometimes glued them together. These moments never ended well once his father learned of his predicament, but he hadn’t done much to stop them from happening again either.

The telephone, which had previously been set on a small table in the hall, gradually moves with him down the corridor until it rests on Yuuri’s lap in the safety of his bedroom. Instead of setting it down on his own bedside table, Yuuri practically cradles to his chest, though it stands a little awkwardly on his tights, perhaps too heavy even for his weight to handle. He himself knows how heavy the old machine could be, how long and vicious the coiled cord is, how easily it can tighten, draped around a slender neck as it pulls, pulls, pulls…

It is hard to decipher what Yuuri is saying, given that what little he knows of the Japanese language is the bare minimum. It is a rather frustrating affair, but until he should come to understand everything transpiring through these conversations, he would have to make-do with what little he knew. The few terms he does recognize are either "yes" or "no", "mother", "father", "sister", and “I am fine”. That last one is a lie, of course. He finds the frown he had spied earlier on in his pictures, now reflected on Yuuri’s face. It might have also been due to his exhaustion. The day had passed by, the early hours trickled into evening without him even noticing how long he had spent hunched over Yuuri’s belongings, until he had straightened his form and felt muscles pulling in his back, bones slotting back into their space. Around noon, Yuuri had strolled in the room shortly before lunch, sweat beading on his forehead and his clothes drenched, almost dyed a darker colour. The young man had looked erratic, ready to collapse from where he stood, hands shaking around his bottle of water and the prescription vial of syrup.

But in spite of this, there is no denying how animated he looks during his phone calls, a sharp contrast to the being that haunts the halls during midday only to disappear in the dancing room or the kitchen, resurfacing when Sasha needs him the most.

Yuuri also mentions him quite a lot, though he pauses momentarily after mentioning him, then shakes his head shortly. Perhaps telling his family that Sasha wouldn’t be able to come on the phone right now, because the poor little thing was so exhausted he had called it a night earlier than usual. He should have found this a little silly of him. Yuuri wasn’t talking to him, after all, he was directly addressing Sasha but was royally ignored for all of his best efforts. They seem to change topics soon after that, but it feels like forever passes by before Yuuri decides to finally exchange farewells, which by themselves took an additional five minutes, then puts the phone down. He is much faster in getting ready for bed, and no sooner does his head hit the pillow and his fingers turn the lights off that he falls into unconsciousness.

He gazes at him a few more times before emerging from the darkness, stopping a few feet short from the bed, his shadow falling across Yuuri’s face as he looms over him.

He ponders on this last phone call as he makes his way to the kitchen. Yuuri was obviously loved. His disappearance would be harder to hide than the other ones. He might need to have a word with Lilia on the matter, in the near future. Though it would be no easy feat to muster. Lilia had left Yuuri with an address to the hotel she and Yakov were staying at, as well as a phone number for him to reach her at any time should an urgent matter arise. Calling her is simply out of the question. Knowing the kind of establishment where his aunt and uncle often stay, all call would first reach the reception, and then be transferred to their room. He would be found too easily, or rebuffed before he could even ask to speak with her.

Letters aren’t any better. While he could write, he feared that the letter would be in too dirty a state to be delivered if it ever reached them; he hadn’t washed his hands properly and his nails were caked with mud and dust that were sure to leave tasteless residues on paper. Besides, he isn’t sure whether or not they are any leftover stamps in the drawer of Lilia’s office. In any case, he would have to leave the house to both buy stamps and deliver the letter, which were equally impossible to achieve. He didn’t trust that Yuuri would behave should he be outside. The only alternative would be to wait for Christophe to return with groceries, but he would sooner walk hundreds of miles to meet with Lilia by himself than be friendly with the Swiss for that matter alone.

Still, he finds that he is in no hurry for Lilia to come back, if it means that he can have more of Yuuri’s food. Today’s concoction is no splendid dish, unlike what he had served yesterday – katsudon, was it what he had called their meal? Yuuri had made them a simple pasta dish, spaghetti a la bolognese with a side of green salad, but it did the trick regardless of its simplicity.

Yuuri's food tastes unbelievably rich, filling a part of his stomach that starts to weight like a stone in spite of how small the bite he had taken was. Very much unlike Lilia's meals, which either tasted too much like cardboard or were too green, lacking in terms of consistency, without an explosion of flavours unfolding on the tip of his tongue, melting on his palate. It should leave an acidic taste at the back of his mouth, and yet he feels none of it rising from the depths of his entrails. All of his being seems permeated with the taste of this foreign dish.

The portion is noticeable smaller than it had been yesterday, due in great part to Yuuri’s sudden decision to diet – something he finds unbelievable, in view of how the dish didn’t seem to comply with a diet of any sort; never once had any of Lilia’s food regimes been associated with decadent tastes. Thankfully she isn’t here to witness him reaching for another one of the many tupperwares of leftover pasta stored in the freezer. In his eagerness, he almost shuts the lid of the freezer too fast and too loudly, barely restraining himself from making noise. Satisfied, he turns to open the microwave and –

 

“Who's there?”

 

– comes face to face with Yuuri.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!  
> I don’t know if there are a lot of readers returning to this fic (can't blame you, it _has_ been a while after all. But if you do, then thank you so much for bearing with my inconsistency! I can't promise you that I will update regularly, especially with college assignments looming in the distance. But I am definitely determined to finish this story :)
> 
> Kudos, tomatoes, comments, death threats and bookmarks are always very much appreciated! I'm @allollipoppins on tumblr & pillowfort, and @AriL10N355 on twitter, hmu!
> 
>  
> 
> _Next chapter: "La Belle Dame sans Merci"_


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